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Clean/Build Issues [message #821500] Thu, 15 March 2012 12:53 Go to next message
Thomas Mancini is currently offline Thomas ManciniFriend
Messages: 11
Registered: March 2012
Junior Member
Hello everyone,

We recently started using Eclipse to develop our java application and have been running into some issues. It should be known that we do not use any version tracker, or build software which probably is not best practice, although I was hoping to find an alternative solution to our problem. We have up to 4-5 developers who could be editing a file in any one of 10+ projects at a time. Throughout our work days, we constantly run into Eclipse wanting to perform a full Clean/Build of the project as certain files are edited. We were previously developing using TextPad and compiling at the command line, and would ideally like to use Eclipse in a similar fashion to make coding easier. Is there anyway to setup Eclipse to do what we're trying to do, or will we need to start using some kind of version tracker?

We have the Build Automatically feature unchecked, but do have the Build before Launch option selected. It just seems like there are times that one of us makes the simplest change to a class that then triggers a full Clean/Build of the project instead of just building that particular class. I recently suggested that everyone should keep all projects closed unless they are currently working on one. I also mentioned we should close the projects at the end of the day, and then reopen them as needed the following day because almost everyone's first Run of the day triggers a full Clean/Build. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.
Re: Clean/Build Issues [message #821543 is a reply to message #821500] Thu, 15 March 2012 13:52 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Russell Bateman is currently offline Russell BatemanFriend
Messages: 3798
Registered: July 2009
Location: Provo, Utah, USA
Senior Member

On 3/15/2012 6:53 AM, Thomas Mancini wrote:
> Hello everyone,
>
> We recently started using Eclipse to develop our java application and
> have been running into some issues. It should be known that we do not
> use any version tracker, or build software which probably is not best
> practice, although I was hoping to find an alternative solution to our
> problem. We have up to 4-5 developers who could be editing a file in any
> one of 10+ projects at a time. Throughout our work days, we constantly
> run into Eclipse wanting to perform a full Clean/Build of the project as
> certain files are edited. We were previously developing using TextPad
> and compiling at the command line, and would ideally like to use Eclipse
> in a similar fashion to make coding easier. Is there anyway to setup
> Eclipse to do what we're trying to do, or will we need to start using
> some kind of version tracker?
>
> We have the Build Automatically feature unchecked, but do have the Build
> before Launch option selected. It just seems like there are times that
> one of us makes the simplest change to a class that then triggers a full
> Clean/Build of the project instead of just building that particular
> class. I recently suggested that everyone should keep all projects
> closed unless they are currently working on one. I also mentioned we
> should close the projects at the end of the day, and then reopen them as
> needed the following day because almost everyone's first Run of the day
> triggers a full Clean/Build. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
>
> Thank you.

There's a lot to say here. And there's a lot that must be guessed at.
I'll say what I can, guess a little bit, and push back for more detail.

No, you don't have to use version control. Eclipse certainly doesn't
care if you do or don't.

It's not difficult to set up version control and it's a much better
business decision to do so for all sorts of reasons. If it's just
complexity that weighs you down, I can help by putting you on to how-tos
for Subversion or Git.

Eclipse will automatically build, in the background, anything saved to
files as you edit them. Most of us work in this mode no matter how big
or how numerous projects are. What is it that annoys your staff about this?

What one developer does has no effect upon another unless you're somehow
sharing a filesystem with eveyone working on the same code out of it.
This is a rather uncommon case these days. Even then, what one changes
wouldn't reflect in another's workspace unless and until he refreshed
his workbench's knowledge of a file. Before I go on, I'd like better to
understand how you're sharing source code, how you've created your
projects, etc.

The advantage to keeping projects closed do not include saving time in
building since workspaces aren't shared. Eclipse builds what's changed.
If a project's not changed in the workbench, Eclipse won't be rebuilding
it unless you ask it to. What advantages do you think you're getting by
doing this?

I hope I'm going to be at least some help to you.
Re: Clean/Build Issues [message #821558 is a reply to message #821543] Thu, 15 March 2012 14:14 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Thomas Mancini is currently offline Thomas ManciniFriend
Messages: 11
Registered: March 2012
Junior Member
Quote:
Eclipse will automatically build, in the background, anything saved to
files as you edit them. Most of us work in this mode no matter how big
or how numerous projects are. What is it that annoys your staff about this?


We initially thought having this option selected would cause even more headaches than what we currently run into because of my response to the following statement.

Quote:
What one developer does has no effect upon another unless you're somehow
sharing a filesystem with eveyone working on the same code out of it.
This is a rather uncommon case these days. Even then, what one changes
wouldn't reflect in another's workspace unless and until he refreshed
his workbench's knowledge of a file. Before I go on, I'd like better to
understand how you're sharing source code, how you've created your
projects, etc.


In my original post, I stated that we previously used TextPad as our editor. Our code and projects are stored on a network drive that all developers have access to. One person created a project for each of the code versions that we still maintain, and the other developers imported that project into their Eclipse workspace.

Quote:
The advantage to keeping projects closed do not include saving time in
building since workspaces aren't shared. Eclipse builds what's changed.
If a project's not changed in the workbench, Eclipse won't be rebuilding
it unless you ask it to. What advantages do you think you're getting by
doing this?


Due to how we are set up, I figured if everyone kept their projects closed unless they were working on something, then it would minimize the number of times the following situation occured:

Developer A is making a change to a project, while Developer B has that project open. A few hours later Developer B has to make a change to the same project, and upon saving and Building, a full Clean/Build is performed due to the changes Developer A made hours ago. If Developer B had the project closed when Developer A first made the changes and then opened the project a few hours later to make changes of his/her own, the project would be refreshed upon opening. When Developer B saves and builds the project it will just Build the recent changes they made instead of cleaning first.

This is just an assumption that I made because I noticed when I start off my day with all projects closed, open a project to make a change, and then Build the project, Eclipse typically just performs the Build instead of an entire Clean/Build.

I hope that this made sense. We have been using Eclipse for less than a year and we definitely love all of the benefits that it provides over a plain text editor. There are just times where multiple developers are waiting (5+ minutes or so) for Clean/Builds to finish, only to trigger another Clean/Build after making new changes of their own.
Re: Clean/Build Issues [message #821564 is a reply to message #821558] Thu, 15 March 2012 14:21 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Russell Bateman is currently offline Russell BatemanFriend
Messages: 3798
Registered: July 2009
Location: Provo, Utah, USA
Senior Member

On 3/15/2012 8:14 AM, Thomas Mancini wrote:
> [snip]
>
> I hope that this made sense. We have been using Eclipse for less than a
> year and we definitely love all of the benefits that it provides over a
> plain text editor. There are just times where multiple developers are
> waiting (5+ minutes or so) for Clean/Builds to finish, only to trigger
> another Clean/Build after making new changes of their own.

If your projects are so huge that they take minutes rather than seconds
to build, I wonder you tempt fate by eschewing version control. I wonder
too that your developers are of such a unified mind that they don't miss
the sandboxing, that employing version control would provide, as they work.
Re: Clean/Build Issues [message #912556 is a reply to message #821500] Thu, 13 September 2012 19:07 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Thomas Mancini is currently offline Thomas ManciniFriend
Messages: 11
Registered: March 2012
Junior Member
Sorry for bumping this old post. But does anyone else have any suggestions, or should we just bite the bullet and start using GitHub?
Re: Clean/Build Issues [message #912607 is a reply to message #912556] Thu, 13 September 2012 21:07 Go to previous messageGo to next message
David Wegener is currently offline David WegenerFriend
Messages: 1445
Registered: July 2009
Senior Member
It would be irresponsible to not use version control for your source code. GitHub is an option. If you don't want your code hosted on a third party system, you can actually setup git on your own workstations as long as you have ssh access to a common location. I'd spend some time getting familiar with Git.
Re: Clean/Build Issues [message #912618 is a reply to message #912556] Thu, 13 September 2012 21:26 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Russell Bateman is currently offline Russell BatemanFriend
Messages: 3798
Registered: July 2009
Location: Provo, Utah, USA
Senior Member

On 9/13/2012 1:07 PM, Thomas Mancini wrote:
> Sorry for bumping this old post. But does anyone else have any
> suggestions, or should we just bite the bullet and start using GitHub?

Atlassian bitbucket is free, even for a limited-number of commercial of
commercial users:

https://bitbucket.org/plans

Not perfect, but it documents my road to Git; maybe it will help, maybe
it will only confuse:

http://www.javahotchocolate.com/tutorials/git.html
http://www.javahotchocolate.com/tutorials/git-lifecycle.html
Re: Clean/Build Issues [message #916044 is a reply to message #821500] Tue, 18 September 2012 12:55 Go to previous message
Thomas Mancini is currently offline Thomas ManciniFriend
Messages: 11
Registered: March 2012
Junior Member
Until we get some kind of version control software running, are there any settings you guys would suggest using for developing in this kind of environment? Would the 'Build Automatically' option be better or worse? Lately this has become more of an issue than ever and we have been getting ourselves stuck in these clean/build loops that take 5+ minutes to run each time, and that is just from a single clean/build. I am also trying to get an idea of what causes Eclipse to think it needs to perform an entire clean/build. Sometimes we will be able to make changes, save, build project, and it is very quick and does not go through entire clean/build process. The only setting that every developer currently has DISABLED is 'Build (if required) before launching'.

[Updated on: Tue, 18 September 2012 12:56]

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