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[ide-dev] Benefits of integration with code server and new generic editor for average Eclipse user

Dear all,

Looking at the archives of "ide-dev" I can tell that it was a month of "code server and new generic editor". A lot of discussions and a lot of issues created and assigned in bugzilla. So looks like the effort is quite serious.

At the same time it looks like quite serious effort to implement proposed changes. What I do not understand is what it will give to average Eclipse IDE user.

I do understand why it is needed for project like "Che" - they do not have other option basically and probably do not have resources to implement support for all major languages by their selves. As far as I know they use JDT for this right now.

I do understand that new editor can get TypeScript support by means of tsserver. At the same time there are multiple existing TypeScript plugins for Eclipse and one of them already uses tsserver:
https://github.com/angelozerr/typescript.java/wiki/Why-TypeScript-IDE

It is possible to get support for C# in Eclipse. And I am absolutely positive that this is not the most needed feature across current Eclipse user base.

I understand that others (non-Eclipse) can benefit from converting JDT to code server. But for Eclipse IDE and JDT itself it will hardly give any benefits. I mean that all understand that Microsoft will not contribute any features to Eclipse or JDT other than ability to use their Azure services or something like that. Why would they help to develop any free Java based project after they killed robovm and do not support Java in their "Azure Functions" (just for reference PHP and Bash are supported).

Eclipse already has plugins for all major languages so rewriting them to be able to expose same functionality via code server by definition will not add anything few to Eclipse IDE.

At the same time there are requests for Eclipse core features which are not addressed for years. For example, even now after more that 2 years after Java 8 was officially released (not counting time it was in developement) Eclipse content assist functionality still has no support for lambda _expression_ completions. Other example is that https://www.eclipsecon.org/na2016/session/faster-index-java-or-cdt-pays-its-debt-jdt is developed outside of Eclipse. Eclipse Android tools are not very actively maintained.

Don't get me wrong. It's open source project and you decide what to implement. And I really don't want to offend anyone. I am just struggling to understand what this can give to average Eclipse IDE user. And it is quite sad for me to realize there is a chance that Eclipse can get yet another TypeScript editor or even C# support before having that (reported in 2014) issue with lambda auto completion support addressed.  

Serhiy

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