Re: [platform-ant-dev] Launching external tools with launch configs?

[Jared Burns <jared-eclipse@xxxxxxxxx>]

The "separate concepts" argument is an interesting one, but I'm not sure I 
agree. It's just as easy to say that the launch config framework is for 
launching programs from Eclipse. From this perspective, launching Ant scripts 
or external tools fits into the launching framework.

Some of the suggestions I've heard for improving our Ant support center 
around integrating it into the debugger. Specifically, we've (Simon and I) 
discussed adding Ant "launches" to the debug view and making Ant use the 
debugger console. This would allow users to keep old launches and view their 
output after the fact. The current support only allows the user to see the 
output from the last script they ran. People would also like to debug Ant 
scripts, which would require further integration.

Launch configuration types have the option of supporting both run and debug 
mode, but they don't have to. For example, "Remote Java Applications" only 
support debug mode. Ant and "program" configurations would only support run 
mode today, but in the future we'd like to add debug mode support to Ant.

As it stands, having the external tools in a separate place doesn't feel 
intuitive to me. I'm not sure if that's because I work on the debugger or 
not. If we make these enhancements, though, I think the separation of the 
external tools/ant support from the rest of the launching framework will 
become even more confusing for the user. After running an Ant script, why 
doesn't it show up in the Run history? I'll give this some more thought as I 
become more familiar with the code. 

Thanks for the feedback,
- Jared

On Tuesday 24 September 2002 03:01 pm, you wrote:
> From a technical point of view the operations are similar, but from a
> user's perspective the operations are different.  Launch configurations are
> used for running/testing the stuff that the user is actually developing --
> the "product" that the user is creating using the IDE.  External tools, on
> the other hand, are really extensions to the IDE itself.  They generally
> operate on the stuff that the user is directly developing.  These tools
> often aren't located in the workspace themselves, but instead they operate
> on the contents of the workspace.  In some cases they will be transparent
> to the user (for example if they are scripts installed on the build path as
> external tool builders).  Another distinction is that it would not
> generally be desirable or even feasible to launch external tools in debug
> mode.
>
> So yes, we did consider using launch configs, and that's some of the
> reasoning behind our decision not to use them.  It basically felt strange
> to be using one mechanism for two very different user concepts -- even
> though from a technology viewpoint they had some similar characteristics.