| Eclipse overly complicated? [message #243099] |
Fri, 14 December 2007 10:23  |
Eclipse User |
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Originally posted by: MacAdam.eden.invalid
Hi,
As I try to come to grips with Eclipse I use the Internet to get
informed. But what I noticed is that a tutorial on the Internet is
seldom applicable to the version of Eclipse I run. For example, I'm
doing setting up a basic Struts project
(http://struts.apache.org/1.2.4/faqs/eclipse.html), and the version of
Eclipse in that is not compatible with mines (I'm using Europe, whatever
version that is).
So the point is, why does the way it works in one version differ from
the version later or earlier? Is that done to make my (or any newbie's)
life more complicated?
Abel
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| Re: Eclipse overly complicated? [message #243192 is a reply to message #243099] |
Fri, 14 December 2007 15:59  |
| Eclipse User |
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Originally posted by: wharley.bea.com
"Abel" <MacAdam@eden.invalid> wrote in message
news:fju76f$af0$1@build.eclipse.org...
> So the point is, why does the way it works in one version differ from the
> version later or earlier? Is that done to make my (or any newbie's) life
> more complicated?
Yes, that's exactly it. As developers on an open source project, it makes
us angry when new people try to use the product; our desire is that no one
at all will use it, so that we won't have to work so hard. Therefore we do
our best to make the product impossible to use, and furthermore we go to
lengths to ensure that there is no documentation or online support
available. Unfortunately forums such as this one are populated with
busybodies who butt in where they aren't wanted, and help out people who in
a more perfect world would be left to sink.
Okay, sarcasm off... it does sometimes feel like that must the case, though,
doesn't it?
Here's the real answer:
Eclipse is an ecosystem. There are hundreds or thousands of developers
working on it, fulltime or part-time, doing it as a hobby or on behalf of
dozens of large corporations. Everyone has different use cases in mind,
different users to support, and different goals for what the product should
do. Everyone has their own ideas about how the product should work and how
to make it better. Everyone does their best to make those ideas come true,
in the limited time they have available.
Unsurprisingly, those ideals collide with each other and with the
constraints of reality; so at any given moment, the product is
self-inconsistent to some degree, and imperfect. Therefore, about all that
can be guaranteed is that each version will contain imperfections, and each
version will be different from the last as people try to resolve those
imperfections and inadvertently introduce new ones. Eclipse actually works
really hard to try to maintain at least some consistency between versions.
But it's necessarily a losing battle.
One way around this might be to make it a dictatorship, rather than a
democracy. Other companies have tried that, with limited success. In an
open source world, that doesn't work very well.
If you've got a better idea of how to do it, you can add your voice to the
rest...
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