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Re: [eclipse-dev] Better highlighting of breaking changes?
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Am 17.12.20 um 10:18 schrieb Gunnar Wagenknecht:
> Dear PMC,
>
> Perhaps the N&N guide can be enhance with a visual indicator what change is a breaking change?
Are we sure everyone reads the N&N? And understands it?
I would prefer a slightly different approach:
1. When you start a new/updated version of Eclipse, show the N&N (we can
display HTML in Eclipse, let's use this).
2. Make N&N easy to reach in the help menu (probably include the last
four N&N, too)
3. Instead of silently changing a default, add a wizard that recommends
new defaults including the explanation from the N&N. For bonus points,
just show the wizard for those parts of Eclipse that the developer
really uses.
My reasoning is this: People are used to how the software behaves. I
have a ton of key sequences moved to my finger tips. I don't think what
I'm doing, I'm coding in my head and my fingers just make it happen.
When it suddenly and silently changes its behavior, people don't always
know why that happens. Granted, sometimes its a change for the better
(replace to end of word by default instead of inserting, for example).
But most of the time surprise == bug. Plus we have a ton of preferences
options. How can people find the one which "broke" their Eclipse just now?
So even if the new behavior is "better", we should not pull the rug out
from under people.
This is even more important for new workspaces. The typical situation
when I create a new workspace is because Eclipse broke the old one
(which I used for years, now). So I'm in the mind-set "Eclipse is buggy
and now, I'm losing a lot of time just so I can make it work again"
already. I create a new workspace. And it behaves differently ...
How many people will think positive in such a situation? In addition to
that, Eclipse does have bugs related to preferences and project
settings. I notice them because I put all my config files under version
control.
Maybe an idea is to add a history to the preferences where you can see
which option changed recently. I'm doing that manually at the moment
(Export prefs and reimport when Eclipse behaves weird).
Regards,
--
Aaron "Optimizer" Digulla a.k.a. Philmann Dark
"It's not the universe that's limited, it's our imagination.
Follow me and I'll show you something beyond the limits."
http://blog.pdark.de/
