[news.eclipse.tools] Request for Comment: Sym-Link/Shortcut Feature Req

["Andrew McCullough" <mccull1@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello all,

A while ago I posted a feature request to BugZilla, but I wanted to post a
message here and see if anyone agrees with me or thinks I'm crazy.  If other
people think this is worthwhile, maybe I can get it some attention, if I'm
nuts, I can just shut up :)

Here is the link:

http://dev.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=6664

The idea is to add the concept of a sym link or "shortcut" to the Eclipse
platform.  This would allow you to refrence a resource (code, JSP, HTML
file, EJB Descriptor) that already exists in the workspace, in a different
project WITHOUT creating multiple copies of the file.  This means that any
change to the file or a link to that file would be immediately reflected
everywhere.

The purpose of this is to allow a developer to create difference "views" (or
perhaps, in Eclipse-speak, "perspectives") into their code.

Mostly this has to do with wanting to organize code in a way that differs
from how it is is stored in source control, since moving files around in
source control is either not always practical, or the need is not worth the
hassle.

Examples of why this might be useful:

Creating J2EE compliant views into your code

     WAR, EJB, and EAR "projects", could be created without having to
maintain your files in the required structure in source control.  Each J2EE
app has it's own requirements for structure (i.e. "lib" directories,
META-INF, etc).

Creating projects which represent different distributions of the same code
base

    A project might be distributed to different clients in different ways.
A developer could create sub-projects which consist soley of links to the
"main" project, but include only items for that kind of distribution.  This
becomes a kind of persistent, visual, ANT target, but could potentially
expose errors/problems/areas for improvement more quickly and more
obviously.

As Mention Above:  Visual "Ant".

    By allowing different code perspectives, you are essentially creating
visual build targets, which could eventually be integrated with the ACTUAL
build targets.  I think there is a lot of potential for sym-links and visual
build procedures.

Any other ideas?

Thanks,

Andrew