Re: [stellation-res] Proposed Changes in Bugzilla (#31581 )

["Mark C. Chu-Carroll" <mcc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, 2003-02-12 at 16:29, Jonathan Gossage wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Jim Wright - IBM Research" <jwright@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: <stellation-res@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Wednesday, February 12, 2003 4:17 PM
> Subject: Re: [stellation-res] Proposed Changes in Bugzilla (#31581 )
> 
> 
> > At 03:25 PM 2/12/2003, Jonathan Gossage wrote:
> >
> > >----- Original Message -----
> > >From: "Mark C. Chu-Carroll" <mcc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > >To: "Stellation-res" <stellation-res@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > >Sent: Wednesday, February 12, 2003 11:36 AM
> > >Subject: Re: [stellation-res] Proposed Changes in Bugzilla (#31581 )
> > <major snip>
> > > > Absolutely, plugins are one of the mechanisms we should support. I'd
> > > > love to see a sort of standard library of scripted behaviors for
> > > > different purposes, each packaged up as a plugin.
> > > >
> > > > I'd also like to find a way to provide a simple, lightweight scripting
> > > > mechanism to allow people to attach scripts without all of the weight
> > > > and complexity of plugins.
> > <minor snip>
> >
> > >I strongly agree that a light-weight way of "scripting" behaviour is
> > >desirable, however I have yet to see a scripting language that did not
> feel
> > >as "heavy-weight" as writing the behaviour in a full fledged programming
> > >language. I personally feel that the way to get "light-weight"
> programming
> > >is via a really good API plus a set of, currently non-existent tools that
> > >can automate the writing of common idioms below the method or function
> > >level.
> > >
> > >BTW when you talk of Eclipse plugins as "heavy-weight" are you thinking
> of
> > >the writing of the plugin, the deployment or both. Is it possible that
> what
> > >we need is a simpler method of injecting custom behaviour into the
> system?
> >
> > An Eclipse plug-in has a certain minimum level of infrastructure: it needs
> > some basic scaffolding, a separate jar, and a separate folder under
> > eclipse/plugins.
> > It is also necessary to exit and restart the Eclipse workbench when you
> > add, upgrade
> > or remove a plug-in.  (While in theory one could perhaps modify the
> > underlying jar while
> > Eclipse was running, it seems pretty risky to me: I swore off
> > self-modifying code more
> > than 20 years ago, once I graduated from the Z80 SBC with 1KB RAM that I
> > programmed in machine code using a hex keypad...)
> >
> > A script (Python or whatever) is typically a single file interpreted by a
> > (hopefully) stable
> > plug-in. Editing a script or trying a new one is a very low overhead
> > activity, with
> > very fast turnaround.   If the scripting plug-in has a halfway reasonable
> > debugger, it's not
> > (or rarely) necessary to run a second instance of Eclipse in order to
> debug
> > the scripted
> > behavior.  While I debug using a second instance all the time, the 512MB
> of
> > RAM in my
> > machine is barely enough.
> >
> > In many domains, scripting is easier for non-developers to learn (and to
> > abuse, of course).
> > This is particularly true if a domain- and task- specific scripting
> > vocabulary is provided,
> > so that script authors can work at a suitably high level of abstraction.
> >
> > Note: I exclude Javascript or, pardon me, ECMAscript, from the category of
> > scripting languages. I worked with it, briefly, and would far rather use
> VB
> > if only those two were available (not saying much!). I'm still a Python
> > newbie, but my limited experience with it has been very positive. It would
> > be interesting to hear other suggestions; please consider ease-of-learning
> > as well as expressive power and support for domain-specific vocabularies.
> >
> > - Jim
> >
> Do you know if there is a plugin that would allow Python to be used inside
> Eclipse? While I have never used Python myself I have heard good things
> about it. Maybe I have just not encountered a good one. BTW are you aware
> that the Eclipse folks tried to add a scripting facility to Eclipse and then
> backed off as they could not get a satisfactory result apparently. The first
> cut code is in the CVS repository.

I don't know if there is a plugin to support it yet, but there is a
Java compatible implementation called Jython. As of the last time I
tried using it (a year or so ago), it had some serious scalability
issues, and I think they were pretty fundamental to the way it was
implemented. But it's adequate for simple scripting inside of
Java applications. It would be reasonably easy to turn into a plugin,
because it's basically a jar intended for embedding in other apps.

> With regards to a scripting language, I suspect that there might be a
> substantial job in building a bridge between the language and the Stellation
> objects to be manipulated.

Yup. Certain to be a lot of work. But, I expect, extremely interesting
and fun work. Lately, we've been bogged down in infrastructure issues
which are important, but they can get very frustrating when they drag on
for this long. I'm really looking forward to getting the base
stabilized, and moving into the more experimental ideas. The whole
reason I started this project was to create a platform where you
could explore things like this. (Can you tell that I'm a starry-eyed
researcher at heart? 8^) )

	-Mark

-- 
Mark Craig Chu-Carroll,  IBM T.J. Watson Research Center  
*** The Stellation project: Advanced SCM for Collaboration
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