Re: [ide-dev] Java IDEs comparison

["Eric Moffatt" <emoffatt@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Andrey, what can I say...we did the best we could with the resources at hand. There is a back story as to *why* we decided to do e4 though:

The 3.x codebase was so tied up in technical debt that is was essentially frozen:
- We weren't able to recruit new committers because of the complexity of the code
- The existing Platform UI committers were severely hampered when trying to make any but the most trivial changes
- Almost all attempts to even get a valid contribution ended up the the contributor giving up after 3 or 4 rejections

The idea of e4 was to simplify the platform code to the point where we could allow contributors to 'get in the game' and to be *successful*. It's worth noting in this context that in 2015 the Platform UI project was voted the 'Most Open' having garnered many new committers from diverse sources (I'm not sure but I suspect we have more now than ever before).

Kepler SR2 got over 10 million downloads just in the top 3 packages...was this the peak ?

While I agree that the drop off is worrying I think we're actually in a much better position with e4 in place to address the various issues raised recently than we would have been trying to do the same things in the 3.x code base.

As for the reason for the drop off I'd point to the decision of Apple to go with Android Studio as being the turning point, followed by the current unrelenting marketing campaign from JetBrains...

<Sigh>,
Eric




"Andrey Loskutov" ---09/14/2016 11:18:32 AM---I agree with Bruno and mostly with original post author except the conclusions. IMHO *the* main issu

From: "Andrey Loskutov" <loskutov@xxxxxx>
To: ide-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: "Discussions about the IDE" <ide-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: 09/14/2016 11:18 AM
Subject: Re: [ide-dev] Java IDEs comparison
Sent by: ide-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx

---

I agree with Bruno and mostly with original post author except the conclusions.

IMHO *the* main issue was that IBM took almost all contributors from Eclipse because of their "Cloud" strategy change (Jazz, Orion etc). That move caused and explains most of other problems.

1) e4 code quality was/is abysmal (no reviews? and a high pressure to deliver something?). I can't believe it could happen if we would still have all the old IBM people on board.
2) p2 is complex, true, but it works ways better then e4. What it lacks is the good documentation and man power to maintain it / drive it forward. We have one active committer left on p2 AFAIK.
3) No product. After IBM left development to the community, we simply had no resources anymore to set common "product quality" goals and priorities for the development, and to ensure overall quality. Performance tests? Switched off because lack of resources. UI guidelines? Not updated due lack of resources, etc...
4) UI is ugly. Absolutely agree. With each release till 4.x Eclipse UI was prettier. Now to get it kind of "OK" one has to disable themes.

I wish we would get IBM man power back, and hope some other big player could invest more, but this is obviously not realistic. Everyone does "cloud" or "apps" today, desktop is not interesting anymore. I don't have a solution for that except that everyone who cares starts to contribute.
 
Kind regards,
Andrey Loskutov

http://google.com/+AndreyLoskutov

Gesendet: Mittwoch, 14. September 2016 um 16:34 Uhr
Von: "Bruno Medeiros" <bruno.do.medeiros@xxxxxxxxx>
An: "Discussions about the IDE" <ide-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Betreff: Re: [ide-dev] Java IDEs comparison

 
 
On 13 September 2016 at 23:31, Patrik Suzzi <psuzzi@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:Hi All,

I just read a post entitled "The fall of Eclipse" -
http://movingfulcrum.com/the-fall-of-eclipse/[http://movingfulcrum.com/the-fall-of-eclipse/].
 
I don't know about the actual usage statistics for Eclipse and IntelliJ, but I very much agree with all the points he raises in the article:

1. Eclipse 4
Yes, this was the beginning of the end.
4.0 and 4.1 series of Eclipse were buggy as hell, unusable for me even for just core Java and PDE work. I only switched from 3.x to 4.x when Eclipse 4.2 was out, and even then it was bumpy.
CSS/theming engine was a failure and massive waste of time, at least for IDE (dunno about RCP). See point 4.
Other e4 technologies were also of questionable value, IMO. Dependency injection? I've never used them in the IDEs I've development. Did it bring significant improvements to technical quality of the IDE?
There there was p2:
2. Equinox P2
Ok, this wasn't as bad as CSS/theming, it works fairly well nowadays (I think? Others might disagree). But it was still another massive investment and breaking change that cost adopters time and effort. Was it worth it in the end? Maybe, I'm not in a position to judge. But other more important aspects were forsaken in the wake of this.
4. Ugly as sin
True. Since Eclipse 4, I've always configured Eclipse to look like the classic theme. Including manually have to tinker with .e4css/ files to restore traditional style tabs. Nowadays, with Eclipse Neon, I just have the theming engine completely disabled. Good riddance.
3. Not a product
True as well, in the sense that there is no proper product director/manager and product vision. This was mentioned before in this thread, see Doug's comments on "product focused organization", etc.
 

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