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| Re: [e4-dev] Re-exporting Require-Bundle | 
Hi,
This is a general issue when an EMF *model* is part of your API, and not 
just the API that is generated by EMF from a model. Although most people 
will program against the generated API, you cannot hide the EMF API, 
since you can always get the EClass and traverse the underlying model. 
Hence, it can be argued that there is no reason hiding EMF either.
Hallvard
Eike Stepper wrote:
-1
Some time ago there was already a long discussion about re-exporting 
pros and cons. Unfortunately I can't remember pointers to it.
Here my 2 cents:
IMHO it depends mostly on whether the API of the referenced bundle A is 
an integral part of the API of the referencing bundle B, or not. If it 
is part of the higher API, e.g. B publishes method signatures with 
parameter types from A, then bundle A should be re-exported since it is 
a pain for API B clients to recurse through all the non-explicit, 
transitive dependencies. The question if it's a good idea to put A-types 
into the B-API is a separate discussion. But I think sometimes it's 
convenient and sometimes it's necessary.
In this particular case it seems as if dependencies (require-bundle) on 
some EMF bundles raised the issue. I know that the APIs of EMF probably 
belong to the most stable ones in Eclipse. And usually code that depends 
on these EMF APIs will never even want to drop this dependency. So, in 
the end I think that the two the main arguments *against* re-exporting 
dependencies don't count so much  if we talk particularly about 
dependencies on EMF ;-)
Cheers
/Eike
----
http://thegordian.blogspot.com
http://twitter.com/eikestepper
 
Thomas Watson schrieb:
+1
Re-exporting is evil. I think it really dirties your bundle's API 
contract. Unless you use a real brittle version range on your 
require-bundle constraint you cannot be that confident that your API 
signature will remain constant for a particular version of you bundle. 
I would almost go as far as to say we should add a warning in PDE to 
flag any usage of re-export. I think it is simply a bad practice 
re-export bundles. The problem is once you have added re-export you 
cannot remove it without it being considered a breaking API change. 
This would be equivalent to removing API from your bundle.
Tom
Inactive hide details for John Arthorne ---06/11/2009 04:22:57 PM---I 
noticed org.eclipse.e4.ui.model.workbench re-exports a coJohn Arthorne 
---06/11/2009 04:22:57 PM---I noticed 
org.eclipse.e4.ui.model.workbench re-exports a couple of EMF plug-ins. 
As a general reminder, re-exporting should be
From: 	
John Arthorne <John_Arthorne@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: 	
e4-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx
Date: 	
06/11/2009 04:22 PM
Subject: 	
[e4-dev] Re-exporting Require-Bundle
------------------------------------------------------------------------
I noticed org.eclipse.e4.ui.model.workbench re-exports a couple of EMF 
plug-ins. As a general reminder, re-exporting should be avoided if 
possible, since it means you are essentially publishing the entire API 
of that other bundle as part of your bundle, and committing to 
maintaining that re-exported content indefinitely. Avoiding re-export 
generally gives more flexibility to remove or refactor dependencies in 
the future without breaking the API exposed by your plug-in. Does 
anyone know of a particular reason for the re-exports in this case? If 
I don't hear back, I'll make an attempt at fixing this to avoid 
re-export._______________________________________________
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