[cosmos-dev] RE: Eclipse version support question

["Mohsin, Jimmy" <Jimmy.Mohsin@xxxxxx>]

David,

 

My $.02…

 

I vote that we require and support only version of Eclipse 3.4…  I say this since there will be a significant cost of testing earlier Eclipse versions; and given that Eclipse is in an Open Source tool, I do not see a major issue in someone upgrading to the GA / COSMOS-blessed version of Eclipse (other than perhaps dev standards or guidelines at a given organization).

 

An even BIGGER issue I see is one with Users (as opposed to Developers)….  This is in reference to the runtimes for the various / sundry software i.e. Tomcat / plug-ins / Java. There, the picture is not so simple since sometimes products REQUIRE a certain version of the Tomcat and/or Java.

 

In one of my recent adoption exercises, I had no choice but to install a totally separate Tomcat JUST for COSMOS, since the product was using an earlier version.

 

That said, if we DO decide to support additional versions of Eclipse / Tomcat / Java, what metrics do we use to decide how far back do we go in terms of versions?  This also has a non-trivial QA impact, since they will have to test the all permutations / combinations of the options.  Also, at least today, the errors that we see are very cryptic in case of incorrect ancillary software…

 

The easiest / cheapest solution I see is to clearly (and narrowly) define the versions of ALL software we will work with; but a pushback we may get from some people is that we are too restrictive…

 

Thanks,

Jimmy Mohsin

Cell   +1-609-635-1703

 

From: cosmos-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:cosmos-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of David Whiteman
Sent: Friday, May 02, 2008 4:31 PM
To: cosmos-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [cosmos-dev] Eclipse version support question

 

Hello all,

A question came up as to whether COSMOS should require the use of Eclipse 3.4 for its Eclipse-based components, or if we should allow the use of an earlier version such as 3.3.  A separate question is whether we support earlier versions; this will make sense when you read on.  

In our plugin prerequisites, you can indicate a minimum version for required bundles, and by default Eclipse fills in whatever the current version of the bundle is in your environment.  We had an internal adopter attempt to install the toolkit using Eclipse 3.3, and the prereq minimum versions that were auto filled-in prevented him from doing so.  The question is whether we change those version numbers to be equal to the 3.3 version strings, remove the version numbers entirely, or simply require the 3.4 versions to be used.  Even though this is related to the toolkit, this will have to be a project wide decision, as we don't want different components supporting different versions of Eclipse.

Is anyone aware of a requirement by an adopter to use our tools with Eclipse 3.3?  Even if not, should we remove the bundle prereq enforcement, and simply say "buyer beware" to those who try using a pre-3.4 installation of Eclipse?

Thanks,
David
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David Whiteman | Tivoli Autonomic Computing
Eclipse COSMOS project committer | http://www.eclipse.org/cosmos/
david_whiteman@xxxxxxxxxx | 919-254-8224 | T/L 444-8224