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RE: [eclipse-dev] Re: [platform-ui-dev] Platform UI's plug-insconverted to manifest format
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Just today I had two projects fail on me when I tried to
use them in 3.1M6 (WebTools and VE) and I'm pretty sure it's because they
depended upon internal packages that changed in M6. It's too easy to use
internals by accident or to use them to get things working and never go
back and fix it the right way. I've done it in my own code.
Therefore if I have a vote I cast it in favor of #1
for most cases. This a) gives developers the
flexibility to change any internal package at any time without fear of breaking
a consumer, and b) enforces a discipline of API usage that has been lacking up
to now.
If you
do use #2 and/or #3, may I suggest that strict mode be the default for
everyone, and that it be hard to turn it
off, so while one developer or small team could be promiscuous,
their code could not easily be run by
anyone else. By 'hard' I mean don't put in UI for
it, make somebody edit a configuration file or set a debug option or something
like that.
Note that for RCP apps, the developer can edit the
manifests or change the code or whatever they want so I don't think it's a big
deal for them. It's more a big deal for add-ins to the IDE that need to work
with older and newer IDE builds/releases.
There are four states a package can be in
1) omitted from the Export-Package
list - in this case the package is just plain not visible to other plugins.
Ever.
2) Export-Package:
org.eclipse.foo;x-internal:=true - in this case the package is available if
PDE or Runtime (whichever is relevant) is in "promiscuous" mode. In
"strict" mode this state is equivalent to #1.
3) Export-Package: org.eclipse.foo;x-friends:="org.eclipse.bar" -
In promiscuous mode foo is available to all. In strict mode foo is only
available to plugin b. This is equivalent to the two plugins being
members of the same "component" in component.xml terms
4) Export-Package: org.eclipse.foo - this is an
unqualified export and allows all other plugins the opportunity to see the
contents of foo in all modes.
