Re: [pde-build-dev] PDE Build and RCP - my observations

[Jeff McAffer <Jeff_McAffer@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Andrew Niefer wrote on 06/06/2006 11:02:00 AM:
> > Would I be correct in saying that for a large project you would
> > probably need a dedicated build engineer to keep it all in check?
> > Making sure that developers are telling you about which plug-ins
> > should be in which feature, making sure they're writing their
test
> > plug-ins correctly. Making sure that the map files are in synch
with
> > the feature.xml files.
> 
> Eclipse itself has 2 build engineers (yay Sonia & Kim!).  If
the 
> developers concentrated on making sure the plug-ins they own build
> properly (maintaining map file entries, the manifest and the plug-in
> build.properties) then ideally the build engineer only has to worry
> about the features.  Though in practice it may not always work
out that way. 

I'd like to amplify this a bit.  The Releng team
is responsible for the care and feeding of the build system and do a wonderful
job.  The responsibility for designing the features largely falls
on the PMC as those choices ultimately define what the project is shipping
(i.e., our product from the user's point of view).  Maintaining map
files is relatively easy and is the responsibility of the developers.  When
a new plugin is added someone has to add it to a map and define its location
etc.  Most teams then have one or two people who regularly version
off all the projects that have changed and update the map files before
an integration (I) build.  The "Releng Tools" are great
for doing this (I'll be darned if I can find them now however...).  Andrew?
 Pascal?

Note that you can have more entries in a map file
than are listed in/used by a feature/build so the developers actions and
the feature maintainers act with relatively independence.  Clearly
a bundle must be in a map file before it can be in a build otherwise the
builder would not know where to get it.

Our features all list 0.0.0 as the plugin version
numbers so we almost never have to edit the feature.xmls.  In our
case we are relatively stable wrt new plugins (in 3.2 we added something
like 20) and this does not turn out to be an issue.

> > It seems to me that there is a lot of room
for error in this system.
> > What are your thoughts on these issues? Am I making a mountain
out of
> > a molehill? Is it just the job of a build engineer to do all
of this?
> > Have I just been making a lot of mistakes along the way?

The problems you are encountering are surely real
and they do impact the success of the team.  It is not clear however
that there are really ways around this.  For example, someone should
be deciding what it is you are actually going to ship.  Someone also
has to determine what CVS versions are the current good ones.  These
two pieces of information basically drive the build regardless of what
mechanism you are using.  

There is some potential for automatically detecting
and fetching prerequisites.  This could be quite useful.  It
could also be problematic if a dependency is satisfied using the wrong
version or supplier.  It is a double edged sword.

Summary:  Your points are well taken and happily
received.  We are currently looking at what to do for 3.3 and this
is one potential area for improvement.   Don't be shy about opening
bug reports for specific suggestions or problems.

Jeff