Eclipse Test and Performance Tools Platform (TPTP) Project 4.6 Plan

TPTP 4.6 is a maintenance release of TPTP 4.5. As such, no new enhancements are in plan and defect fixing will be the primary goal of this release. In plan defects can be found in the TPTP bugzilla database. In plan defects will be targeted to TPTP 4.6 and will have a priority of P1. Each defect will also have a title and a concise summary (usually a single sentence or small paragraph) that explains the work item at a suitably high enough level so that everyone can readily understand what the work item is without having to understand the nitty-gritty detail.

Below you will find the detailed schedule for the TPTP 4.6 deliverable. Additionally, you will find the details of its base release - TPTP 4.5. With the previous release, TPTP 4.5.2, as the starting point, TPTP will address defects, and ensure adequate test coverage, improve documentation, examples, performance tuning, usability, etc. TPTP 4.6 will also add support for Eclipse SDK 3.5.

Runtime
Source
Examples
Component Tests
Data Collection Engine for Windows (Vista, XP) 32-bit (x86) Runtime
Data Collection Engine for Windows (XP, Server 2003) 32-bit (x86)/64-bit (x86_64)Runtime
Data Collection Engine for Windows Server 2003 Itanium Runtime
Data Collection Engine for Linux 32-bit (x86)/64-bit (x86_64)Runtime
Data Collection Engine for Linux Itanium Runtime
Plugin Translatability Log

Notes: It is important to notice that this list of platforms has been significantly reduced from previous releases. Based on consumer feedback, several platforms have been stabilized at the TPTP 4.3 level, and will remain there with no enhancement plans until there is a larger community demand backed by committer resources.

Release milestones for the TPTP 4.6 release are targeted for general availability on 26-June-2009. All release deliverables will be available for download as soon as the release has been tested and validated in the target operating configurations. There is a significant allocation of resource to defect removal in all iterations. The first 2 iterations will also contain the bulk of the defect work. The remaining iteration is used to stabilize and shut down the release. Every iteration will provide a milestone driver to the Galileo release stream.

Milestone	Start Date	End Date	Description
Iteration 1	2/16/2009	3/13/2009	Defect Fixing and Test Pass; API Freeze - March 6, 2009
Iteration 2	3/16/2009	5/1/2009	Defect Fixing and Test Pass; Feature Freeze - April 17, 2009
Iteration 3	5/4/2009	6/12/2009	Shutdown; Marching to 4.6 GA

For a detailed development schedule of TPTP 4.6 release, click here.

In order to remain current, each TPTP release targets reasonably current versions of the underlying operating environments.

Java runtime (JRE) or Java Development Kit (JDK) 1.5, and 1.6
Eclipse SDK 3.5 for Linux GTK, Linux (Motif), or Windows
Eclipse Modeling Framework (EMF) SDK 2.5.
XML Schema Infoset Model (XSD) SDK 2.5.

Most of the TPTP SDK is "pure" Java™ code and has no direct dependence on the underlying operating system. The chief dependence is therefore on the Java 2 Platform itself. The TPTP 4.6 release is written and compiled against version 1.5 of the Java 2 Platform APIs, and targeted to run on version 1.5 or newer of the Java 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition.

There are many different implementations of the Java 2 Platform running atop a variety of operating systems. We focus TPTP testing on a handful of popular combinations of operating system and Java 2 Platform; these are our reference platforms. TPTP undoubtedly runs fine in many operating environments beyond the reference platforms we test. However, since we do not systematically test them we cannot vouch for them. Problems encountered when running TPTP on non-reference platforms that cannot be recreated on any reference platform will be given lower priority than problems with running TPTP on a reference platform.

Please refer to the Supported Operating system and JRE document for detailed information on the target operating environments for TPTP 4.6 release.

TPTP is designed as the basis for internationalized products. The user interface elements provided by the TPTP SDK components, including dialogs and error messages, are externalized. The English strings are provided as the default resource bundles.

Latin-1 locales are supported by the TPTP SDK on all of the above operating environments; DBCS locales are supported by the TPTP SDK on the Windows, GTK, and Motif window systems; BIDI locales are supported by the TPTP SDK only on Windows operating environments.

The TPTP SDK supports GB 18030, the new Chinese code page standard, on Windows XP and Linux.

TPTP supports ICU4J starting in 4.2 release. This will significantly increase the number of supportable locales. Products needing to localize to newer locales are enabled. German, Traditional Chinese, and Arabic are tested.

Note that although TPTP support all these languages, only the English versions of the strings are provided.

Compatibility with Previous Releases

TPTP 4.6 will be backward compatible with TPTP 4.5. See TPTP API Contract for more information about TPTP APIs. The following specifies details of the various aspects of release compatibility.

API Contract Compatibility: Refer to Evolving Java-based APIs for a discussion of the kinds of API changes that maintain contract compatibility. TPTP SDK 4.6 will be upwards contract-compatible with TPTP SDK 4.5. Downward contract compatibility is not supported. There is no guarantee that compliance with TPTP SDK 4.6 APIs would ensure compliance with TPTP SDK 4.4 or lower APIs.

Binary (plug-in) Compatibility: TPTP SDK 4.6 will be upwards binary-compatible with TPTP SDK 4.5. Downward plug-in compatibility is not supported. Plug-ins for TPTP SDK 4.6 will not be usable in TPTP SDK 4.5 or lower. Refer to Evolving Java-based APIs for a discussion of the kinds of API changes that maintain binary compatibility.

Source Compatibility: TPTP SDK 4.6 will be upwards source-compatible with TPTP SDK 4.5. This means that source files written to use TPTP SDK 4.5 APIs might successfully compile and run against TPTP SDK 4.6 APIs, although this is not guaranteed. Downward source compatibility is not supported. If source files use new TPTP SDK APIs, they will not be usable with an earlier version of the TPTP SDK.

Workspace Compatibility: TPTP SDK 4.6 will be upwards workspace-compatible with TPTP SDK 4.5 unless noted. This means that workspaces and projects created with TPTP SDK 4.5 can be successfully opened by TPTP SDK 4.6 and upgraded to a 4.6 workspace. This includes both hidden metadata, which is localized to a particular workspace, as well as metadata files found within a workspace project (e.g., the .project file), which may propagate between workspaces via file copying or team repositories. Downward workspace compatibility is not supported. A workspace created (or opened) by a product based on TPTP 4.6 will be unusable with a product based an earlier version of TPTP. Visible metadata files created (or overwritten) by TPTP 4.6 will generally be unusable with earlier versions of TPTP.

Non-compliant usage of API's: All non-API methods and classes, and certainly everything in a package with "internal" or "provisional" in its name, are considered implementation details which may vary between operating environment and are subject to change without notice. Client plug-ins that directly depend on anything other than what is specified in the TPTP SDK API are inherently unsupportable and receive no guarantees about compatibility within a single release much less with an earlier releases. Refer to How to Use the Eclipse API for information about how to write compliant plug-ins and TPTP API Contract for more information about internal and provisional TPTP APIs.

The TPTP PMC adopted and specialized the following Eclipse themes which represented the key focus areas for the TPTP 4.5 release that was delivered earlier. TPTP 4.6 is an ongoing maintenance stream of this earlier deliverable and additionally supports Eclipse SDK 3.5.

TPTP continued to enhance the support of large data volumes and processing rates in areas such as data collection, user interface and in the persistence of trace, log and statistical models and execution histories.

Changes to the data collection layers increased interoperability with enterprise security infrastructure. In addition, there was progressive adoption of the TPTP tools and infrastructure as a test platform for the project itself, which in turn drove refinements into the tools. An increased focus on whole-project integration testing ensured effective interoperability amongst all TPTP components and the rest of the Eclipse environment.

There were a wide range of activities within TPTP to externalize APIs and define extension points, making the infrastructure more flexible and more generic in application. A good example of this was the integration of TPTP with WTP and BIRT for web application testing, profiling and generation of customized reports of results.

TPTP target execution environment and remote data collection framework provided capabilities that were adapted for high-end embedded systems.

Previously existing TPTP tools were conceived as samples, rather than as exemplary, and so they were deficient in many areas of usability and in some cases lacking in function.

A range of initiatives were undertaken to broaden the community of potential and actual users of TPTP. Technically this included additional integration of open source test tool technologies based on JUnit, and the various hooks to JUnit in the JDT, more data collection agents – particularly focusing on open source technologies, and additional operating system and hardware platforms from which data can be collected.

The TPTP top-level project comprises four projects, managed in a coordinated fashion, across which plan items are allocated. TPTP projects include:

TPTP Platform Project - Provides common infrastructure in the areas of user interface, EMF based data models, data collection and communications control, as well as remote execution environments. Additionally, the Platform provides extension points for leveraging or extending these capabilities in solution specific tooling or runtimes. This includes Eclipse workbench plug-ins as well as runtime plug-ins on a target and optionally remote system.
Testing Tools Project - Provides specializations of the TPTP Platform for testing (e.g. test editors, trace/test conversion support), and exemplary extensible tools for specific testing environments. Initially this includes three test environments: JUnit, JUnit Plug-in, and URL testing. These specializations provide optimized editing and reporting experiences for these use cases. In the cases where a unique runtime or an implementation of a testability interface is required, it is also developed in the project.
Tracing & Profiling Tools Project - Extends the TPTP Platform with specific data collection for Java and distributed applications that populate the common trace model, additional language and protocol support is anticipated. There are also viewers and analysis services that draw data from the common trace model. Capabilities are provided to collect and analyze heap and stack information as well as generic toolkits for instrumenting running applications.
Monitoring Tools Project - Although now in AS-IS mode, TPTP continues to provide the TPTP Monitoring Tools Project to the open source community for those users wishing to extend the TPTP Platform for collecting, analyzing, aggregating, and visualizing data that can be captured in the log and statistical models. The typical examples are the collection of system or application resources such as CPU or memory utilization and support for the viewing, aggregation, and analysis of that data. Logs can also be transformed into a common format and model allowing for symptom and pattern analysis. The correlation of the data in these models is of particular interest when it is associated with other model instances of statistical or log data as well as traces and tests.

TPTP 4.6 is a maintenance release and as such has no planned features.

In TPTP 4.6 the focus will be on the reduction of the defect backlog. Defects are prioritized based on severity, age, and resource availability. We encourage users to report defects and we will do our best to fix them in priority order. The goal is resolve as many of the major/critical/blocker defects as possible.

See TPTP 4.6 Defects for a listing of already fixed defects, open defects currently targeted for resolution in TPTP 4.6 and backlogged defects.