From:
eclipse.org-architecture-council-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:eclipse.org-architecture-council-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Gaff,
Doug
Sent: Thursday, May 08, 2008 12:06 PM
To: eclipse.org-architecture-council
Subject: [eclipse.org-architecture-council] Very raw notes from today
Hi folks,
Here’s a partial set of notes. I’m not much of stenographer,
so please add your annotations and corrections. It gets passed the “existential
angst” about mid-way through.
(intro – what should we talk about today?)
We got into the role of the AC again.
DS: We need multiple folks to step up and lead areas they’re
interested in.
DG: I was asked to join to be a project mentor, but actual
running a project issues could be covered elsewhere.
MO: Community gathering to discuss cross-project issues
(naming, problems, perhaps cross-project arch questions)
EM: When I joined, we talked about Java 5.0. But we haven’t
covered anything technical sense then.
MO: What do we expect from the arch council? We need to set
the agenda ahead of time.
Mary: The agenda definitely helped ensure attendance at the
last meeting.
DG: We definitely need to cover more technical topics.
DS: Maybe we need a project lead council?
DG: I think the Planning Council should be the project lead
council. We should cover more than just Ganymede.
DS: Why didn’t the e4 team present to the AC?
Boris: Well, is writing an Eclipse plug-in difficult?
Several folks: Discussion about ease. Discussion about
firefox plug-ins.
Boris: Well, one of the things we say on the platform team
is that it’s hard to write an Eclipse plug-in, but maybe that’s an issue for
some folks. That’s what motivated E4.
DS: Back to the original question, maybe the AC doesn’t have
the respect yet.
Martin: I disagree, it’s the same leaders as elsewhere in
the community.
Ed: Yes, as individuals we have respect, but we haven’t
managed to glue this together into a respectable body yet.
DS: Right, one that people want to present ideas to.
DG: We need to stop calling ourselves dysfunctional.
Ed: Yeah, let’s just start covering interesting topics
rather than reflecting on our role.
DS: So back to E4. Is it really just about the web?
Boris: Well, we feel like we’re responding needs of future
software developers.
DG: Yeah, but not everyone needs Eclipse on the web. For us
E4 is: reduce bloat, make it possible to dumb down the UI for some users,
improve performance.
Tom: But don’t we have a backward compatibility requirement
that makes dealing with bloat difficult?
Boris: Well, that’s a good question. The summit really needs
to answer what the backwards compatibility requirements are.
DS: What is the bloat?
Boris: Well, we’re running out of permgen space. That’s one
obvious sign.
(some discussion on the details)
Martin: We also have too many API’s. Some API’s can be
deprecated, but some API’s are too widely used, but could be marked as
“sub-optimal” (not recommended).
Boris: Yes, but the new API’s don’t always cover the corner
cases.
Tom: Yes, but those corner cases are what causes the bloat.
DS: But, if we migrating people to a new major version, they
will have to migrate.
Boris: This may require major breakage, though.
Martin: First, we should tag the good API’s and the
corner-case API’s so folks know what we’re looking at.
Boris: Right, mark “recommended” and “non recommended” on
API’s. This is the “20 things” discussion on the summit agenda page – the
Eclipse application model. There’s another one, “architectural foundations”
that should be relevant for the AC, too. Anyone want to help?
Ed: Yes
Martin: We should have a follow-on meeting next week to
cover the “architectural foundations” topic prior to the E4 summit. Open call
(beyond AC). Martin will send an invitation and will check about which number
to use.
Everyone agreed, and we ran out of time.