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Loading my plugin when JDT loads [message #333251] Tue, 02 December 2008 02:17 Go to next message
Kent Beck is currently offline Kent BeckFriend
Messages: 11
Registered: July 2009
Junior Member
I want to register to get notified of all Java changes. I can do this by
calling JavaCore.addElementChangedListener(). However, I don't want my
plugin to be loaded until org.eclipse.jdt.core is loaded. My hack attempt
to do this was declare a dummy extension to an org.eclipse.jdt.core
extension point, but it doesn't work on all versions of Eclipse. Plus it's
ugly. How can I cleanly ensure that my plugin is loaded when another
plugin is loaded?

Regards,

Kent
Re: Loading my plugin when JDT loads [message #333265 is a reply to message #333251] Tue, 02 December 2008 17:19 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Snjezana Peco is currently offline Snjezana PecoFriend
Messages: 789
Registered: July 2009
Senior Member
BundleListener could help if you are using Eclipse 3.0 or higher.

Snjeza

Kent Beck wrote:
> I want to register to get notified of all Java changes. I can do this by
> calling JavaCore.addElementChangedListener(). However, I don't want my
> plugin to be loaded until org.eclipse.jdt.core is loaded. My hack
> attempt to do this was declare a dummy extension to an
> org.eclipse.jdt.core extension point, but it doesn't work on all
> versions of Eclipse. Plus it's ugly. How can I cleanly ensure that my
> plugin is loaded when another plugin is loaded?
>
> Regards,
>
> Kent
>
Re: Loading my plugin when JDT loads [message #333268 is a reply to message #333265] Tue, 02 December 2008 20:41 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Kent Beck is currently offline Kent BeckFriend
Messages: 11
Registered: July 2009
Junior Member
Thanks for the hint. I apologize for being dense, but I don't see how that
would help, unless I can declare BundleListeners somehow in the manifest.

Say I want to write a log file of all Java changes. I write a plugin whose
activator looks like this (and I may have already gone wrong with this
step):

public void start(BundleContext context) throws Exception {
...
JavaCore.addElementChangedListener(myListener);
}

I want to be a good citizen, so I don't force my plugin to load at
startup. I especially don't want to do this because it would cause all of
jdt.core to load.

Unfortunately, this means that my listener never gets registered because
my plugin never gets loaded. This seems to me a weakness of the dynamic
listener model. When listeners are extensions, my plugin gets loaded when
the declaring plugin instantiates the listeners.

The hack I used was to declare a null CompilationParticipant. That way,
when jdt.core goes to compile the first time it instantiates my extension
which loads the plugin, calling start() and away we go.

I find this ugly and fragile, so I was hoping there was some way I could
say in the manifest "when jdt.core loads, please load me as well". I can't
imagine I'm the first person ever to encounter this problem.

Regards,

Kent
Re: Loading my plugin when JDT loads [message #333272 is a reply to message #333268] Tue, 02 December 2008 22:22 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Walter Harley is currently offline Walter HarleyFriend
Messages: 847
Registered: July 2009
Senior Member
"Kent Beck" <kentb@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:4efd6db1d3bac297449a12c09bcc5d90$1@www.eclipse.org...
>
> I find this ugly and fragile, so I was hoping there was some way I could
> say in the manifest "when jdt.core loads, please load me as well". I can't
> imagine I'm the first person ever to encounter this problem.

What's your actual application? (I assume you're not actually trying to log
deltas.) There may be a different way to do what you're trying to do. Take
a look at the section on "Save Participants", at the end of
http://www.eclipse.org/articles/Article-Resource-deltas/reso urce-deltas.html
..
Re: Loading my plugin when JDT loads [message #333274 is a reply to message #333272] Wed, 03 December 2008 00:25 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Kent Beck is currently offline Kent BeckFriend
Messages: 11
Registered: July 2009
Junior Member
Walter,

Thank you for the additional ideas. I think that even with the
SaveParticipant I'm still left with finding a way to get my plugin
activated.

You asked about the application. It's a bit of a long story, but here you
go:

JUnitMax is a project to enhance the value of tests. I noticed that one of
the costs of developer testing is the cost of waiting for tests to finish.
It's more than just the 10 seconds/run * 100 runs/day * $50/hour
(~$12/day). A bigger component of the cost is the distraction from the
inner loop of development. If there was a way to get most or all of value
of running tests without a distracting pause, development would go more
smoothly without any loss of feedback. I'd expect to see tests run more
often and progress on code to be steadier.

It's that last proposition that I would like to validate empirically. I
want to run an experiment where volunteers code the way they usually code
for a week then introduce the Max runner and code for another week. At the
end of that time I'll analyze the log files of their testing and coding
activities, tell them what I find, and see if there are any characteristic
changes of rhythm between programming with the old runner and the Max
runner. I'd like to make supportable conclusions about development--using
the Max runner results in X% less time between starting tests and the next
new bit of code (eventually resulting in higher productivity).

I want to capture minimal information about development (HackyStat or
DevCreek UltraLite)--when tests start, when they stop, and when changes to
Java files happen. To do this I wrote an eentsy-weentsy plugin that
listens for Java changes and test starts and stops--no UI, it just writes
data to a log. The problem is, the plugin is so minimal it never gets
activated.

At this point I'm almost resigned to the CompilerParticipant hack. It
works but it seems ugly and fragile to me. I also tried attaching a
fragment to jdt.core, but I had the same problem--finding a entry point
that is sure to be called.

As I said, I can't imagine I'm the first person to encounter this problem.
Either that or I'm not thinking about the problem The Eclipse Way. Thanks
for your help setting me straight.

Regards,

Kent
Re: Loading my plugin when JDT loads [message #333276 is a reply to message #333268] Wed, 03 December 2008 06:45 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Remy Suen is currently offline Remy SuenFriend
Messages: 462
Registered: July 2009
Senior Member
Kent Beck wrote:
> I want to be a good citizen, so I don't force my plugin to load at
> startup. I especially don't want to do this because it would cause all
> of jdt.core to load.

You could try having bundle A use the startup extension point, it'd be
pretty blank with a BundleListener listening for jdt.core's activation,
then when it's activated you can try to activate your bundle B which has
the actual listener. That might do it...?

Remy
Re: Loading my plugin when JDT loads [message #333278 is a reply to message #333274] Wed, 03 December 2008 08:40 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Snjezana Peco is currently offline Snjezana PecoFriend
Messages: 789
Registered: July 2009
Senior Member
If you can change your configuration, you can try to use Equinox Adaptor
Hooks http://wiki.eclipse.org/index.php/Adaptor_Hooks. Bundle Watcher
Hook is possibly the most suitable.

Snjeza

Kent Beck wrote:
> Walter,
>
> Thank you for the additional ideas. I think that even with the
> SaveParticipant I'm still left with finding a way to get my plugin
> activated.
>
> You asked about the application. It's a bit of a long story, but here
> you go:
>
> JUnitMax is a project to enhance the value of tests. I noticed that one
> of the costs of developer testing is the cost of waiting for tests to
> finish. It's more than just the 10 seconds/run * 100 runs/day * $50/hour
> (~$12/day). A bigger component of the cost is the distraction from the
> inner loop of development. If there was a way to get most or all of
> value of running tests without a distracting pause, development would go
> more smoothly without any loss of feedback. I'd expect to see tests run
> more often and progress on code to be steadier.
>
> It's that last proposition that I would like to validate empirically. I
> want to run an experiment where volunteers code the way they usually
> code for a week then introduce the Max runner and code for another week.
> At the end of that time I'll analyze the log files of their testing and
> coding activities, tell them what I find, and see if there are any
> characteristic changes of rhythm between programming with the old runner
> and the Max runner. I'd like to make supportable conclusions about
> development--using the Max runner results in X% less time between
> starting tests and the next new bit of code (eventually resulting in
> higher productivity).
>
> I want to capture minimal information about development (HackyStat or
> DevCreek UltraLite)--when tests start, when they stop, and when changes
> to Java files happen. To do this I wrote an eentsy-weentsy plugin that
> listens for Java changes and test starts and stops--no UI, it just
> writes data to a log. The problem is, the plugin is so minimal it never
> gets activated.
>
> At this point I'm almost resigned to the CompilerParticipant hack. It
> works but it seems ugly and fragile to me. I also tried attaching a
> fragment to jdt.core, but I had the same problem--finding a entry point
> that is sure to be called.
>
> As I said, I can't imagine I'm the first person to encounter this
> problem. Either that or I'm not thinking about the problem The Eclipse
> Way. Thanks for your help setting me straight.
>
> Regards,
>
> Kent
>
>
>
>
>
Re: Loading my plugin when JDT loads [message #333290 is a reply to message #333276] Wed, 03 December 2008 14:24 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Kent Beck is currently offline Kent BeckFriend
Messages: 11
Registered: July 2009
Junior Member
Remy,

Thanks for the idea. That's the functionality I was hoping the manifest
would provide so I didn't have to a) code it myself and b) force my plugin
to load at startup. I'll try it just to see how it works, but I'll
probably use the CompilerParticipant hack in production.

Regards,

Kent
Re: Loading my plugin when JDT loads [message #333367 is a reply to message #333274] Sat, 06 December 2008 01:24 Go to previous message
Walter Harley is currently offline Walter HarleyFriend
Messages: 847
Registered: July 2009
Senior Member
"Kent Beck" <kentb@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:a9761f13ba839d6af66aceaa70ad16eb$1@www.eclipse.org...
> I want to capture minimal information about development (HackyStat or
> DevCreek UltraLite)--when tests start, when they stop, and when changes to
> Java files happen. To do this I wrote an eentsy-weentsy plugin that
> listens for Java changes and test starts and stops--no UI, it just writes
> data to a log. The problem is, the plugin is so minimal it never gets
> activated.

Eh, in a situation like that I think loading at startup is probably a
reasonable thing to do. Your plug-in is small and you don't expect to be
shipping it to many people, especially to many people who don't do Java
development. If you know that functionality is going to be used, then
loading it lazily is not always right...

As a reference point, when I worked on the BEA Weblogic plugins, we had some
logging functionality, to instrument user actions for feedback on what
features were being used. It turned out to be the best option to load a
(very small) plug-in at startup time.

You're quite right to be concerned about it - even small plug-ins still take
time and resources to load, and in general startup plugins should be avoided
like the plague. But action logging seems to be one of the cases where it
is hard to avoid.

I'm not aware of a "bundle loaded" extension point but it does seem like an
interesting idea.
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