Hi Brian,
this sounds like a great idea. I'm CC'ing Dave Dykstal (DSDP-TM / RSE)
and Scott
Lewis (ECF) here to broaden the discussion, as well as Doug Gaff from the
DSDP PMC. For background, see
http://wiki.eclipse.org/E4/Connection_Frameworks
I think it would make sense if we prepare a conference / demo session to
understand what we all have. You could showcase what DTP has, and I'd
also be interested to see Sybase vendor-specific extensions of the DTP
framework used for other kinds of connectivity. Others could probably also
kick in and make some demo of their stuff.
If that sounds good to you, could you propose a meeting time and
Screen Sharing facility? I could offer using Wind River's Webex
account but haven't used it myself so far so I'm not sure how well
it would work for a shared demo session.
In order to also add the technical aspect of DSDP-TM, we do have
a lot of re-usable widgets, wizards and views for generic kinds of
connections and the resources below them. But our code pre-dates
the Common Navigator, so we don't have a CN integration yet.
And, the kinds of connections that we've been managing are biased
towards TCP/IP so they are not quite as generic as they could be.
We do, however, have a concept of system types with pluggable
subsystem kinds which proved quite usable so far.
I fully agree that in a world where the "Network" is becoming more
important than the local client, a generic approach for the user to
manage connections of all kinds will simplify user experience
(and help reducing code duplication and bloat).
Cheers,
--
*Martin Oberhuber*, Senior Member of Technical Staff, *Wind River*
Target Management Project Lead, DSDP PMC Member
http://www.eclipse.org/dsdp/tm
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*From:* eclipse-incubator-e4-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:eclipse-incubator-e4-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx] *On Behalf
Of *brian.fitzpatrick@xxxxxxxxxx
*Sent:* Thursday, August 21, 2008 7:49 PM
*To:* eclipse-incubator-e4-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx
*Subject:* [eclipse-incubator-e4-dev] e4 beyond the ongoing UI
conversations...
Hi all...
Though I appreciate all the great discussion going on around e4
and the UI work being done (though most of it is beyond me, not
being an HTML/CSS guy, I do find it fascinating), I was wondering
if there is room in e4 to focus on other parts of the Eclipse
ecosystem as well.
One of the issues IMHO across some of the major Eclipse projects
is the issue of cross-project integration. This is especially
evident (to me anyway) in terms of connection frameworks.
The Eclipse ecosystem has many different types of "connection"
frameworks. The CVS (Eclipse Platform), Remote Systems Explorer
(DSDP-TM), Web (WTP), Communications (ECF), and Database
Development (DTP) perspectives all have their own server/system
connection management user interfaces and connection frameworks.
WTP has been working with DTP to handle management of database
connections, which is great, but it's just the tip of the iceberg.
Within e4, we have a chance to settle on a common framework for
connection management and its associated UI. This would not only
help out the user with a common look and feel across the Eclipse
ecosystem for connecting to various systems, but it would allow
adopters and extenders to take advantage of this common framework
so they too would fit into the Eclipse-iverse more seamlessly to
their own users.
The connection framework within DTP, though used primarily for
JDBC database connections at this point, has been used with great
success in many other ways by Sybase products to connect to file
systems, application servers, UDDI and LDAP repositories, and so
on. I think it has great potential to fill the need for a common
connection framework in e4.
However, integrating will the other projects in Eclipse will be
tricky at best and require a great deal of collaboration from many
interested parties.
Do others see this as a problem that could be addressed within the
e4 timeframe? Or am I way out of scope with this suggestion?
Thanks
--Fitz (aka Brian Fitzpatrick)
Brian Fitzpatrick
Eclipse Data Tools Platform PMC Chair
Eclipse Data Tools Platform Connectivity Team Lead
Staff Software Engineer, Sybase, Inc.