[platform-ui-dev] UIJob vs WorkbenchJob - Role/Expectations

[Pat McCarthy <patmc@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Trying to make sure I understand the
role of each job type with respect to classic plug-in development (IDE)
vs other types of contributions (RCP and so on).

There were posts about the UIJob way
back that seemed to indicate that you must provide a display on the constructor
or via the setDisplay method (http://dev.eclipse.org/mhonarc/lists/eclipse-dev/msg03293.html).
Current code base just grabs the display for you if not provided.  I
seem to have a vague memory where the auto-grab of the PlatformUI display
was supposed to be done by the WorkbenchJob, but not a UIJob.

Working backwards, I've got a set of
the Eclipse UI oriented plug-ins imported (some, not all).  I've been
searching for references to see if there is a common strategy on when to
use UIJob vs WorkbenchJob.

Given the set I have in my workspace
- I see 49 UIJob refs and 28 WorkbenchJob refs.  I guess I expected
a higher percentage of them to be WorkbenchJobs.  Even code in the
plugin that defines WorkbenchJob seems to use UIJob instead.

Can anyone comment on the strategy for
choosing one over the other?  (Beyond the fact that the WorkbenchJob
will ask twice if the platform is running (shouldSchedule/shouldRun) and
gives you a 'free' done listener for the job itself).

Regards,

Pat McCarthy