Re: [eclipse-dev] HOT LOADING of JARS

[Kevin_McGuire@xxxxxxxxxx]

On the 2.2. plan there is an item:

( new) Allow plug-in deactivation. In order to scale to a large number of plug-ins, Eclipse does not 
activate a plug-in until its code is actually needed. However, once 
activated a plug-in remains active for the remainder of the session. 
Unfortunately, this means that an active plug-in will occupy memory space 
for its code and objects even if it is only used occasionally. Many users 
have sessions lasting days or weeks, and this bloat taxes processor memory 
and JVM performance. The analogy is a long play where the actors enter the 
stage on cue, but cannot leave it until the play is over. The Eclipse 
Platform should support plug-ins that can be safely deactivated when the 
user needs to recover valuable memory space. Another alternative is to 
provide a way to quietly shutdown and restart the Platform. [Platform 
Core, Platform UI]

While this doesn't directly address hotswapping, it is very close to the 
problem:  if you can unload a plugin, its not that far a stretch to be 
able to hotswap.

Note that to hotswap you will need to not only be able to unload classes, 
but to unload the plugin info as well since this may also have changed, 
and these affect downstream plugins.  So the problem is non trivial and I 
don't expect that there would be a workaround in the current eclipse.

As someone else noted, the current standard practice is to launch a second 
eclipse using your project directory as the plugin directory.

Kevin






"Roques, Olivier " <oroques@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent by: eclipse-dev-admin@xxxxxxxxxxx
01/22/2003 09:31 AM
Please respond to eclipse-dev

 
        To:     "'eclipse-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx'" <eclipse-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx>
        cc:     "Guilbaud, Dominique" <dguilbaud@xxxxxxxxxxxx>, "Canches, Julien " 
<jcanches@xxxxxxxxxxxx>, "Wurth, Emmanuel " <ewurth@xxxxxxxxxxxx>, 
"Roques, Olivier " <oroques@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
        Subject:        [eclipse-dev] HOT LOADING of JARS



Hi all,
 
 
As a developper of Eclipse plugin (XDE/XT) , I have to exit and restart the eclipse shell each time I want to see the 
change I do in one of a jar of a plugin because the Class loader load the jars of the plugins at the start stage.
 
 
                                        It's a lot of wasted time to do 
that.!!!
 
 
Has anyone investigate a workaround for this ?
 
 
Any idea or remark would be greatly appreciated.
 
 
 
        thanks
 
 
 
                        Olivier