[wtp-pmc] e4 Summit Trip Report

[Tim deBoer <deboer@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

As discussed on the call today, I'm
sending this note out to share some news from the Eclipse e4 Summit that
I attended last week. Please feel free to email me if you have any specific
questions about e4 or the summit.

There is a growing opinion that the
yearly release cycle, strict API (and internal) compatibility, and huge
user base is stifling innovation in Eclipse. To counteract this, e4 is
the code name for a project to re-invent Eclipse from the ground up. The
main goals are:

• Cleaner, simpler API for new users, taking advantage of all the lessons we've learned (known as the "20 things" needed to write a plugin)
• Web enablement (SWT running in _javascript_ and/or Flex)
• Ability to use scripting to write plugins
• Full support for styling (i.e. CSS skinning/branding)
• More flexible resource/project model

Several other features are also being
discussed, including things like:

• Declarative UI (the ability to quickly create UIs using xml instead of code)
• Client/server support (e.g. using a workspace from another machine, expanding this to general support)
• Modelling the workbench (i.e. EMF models for everything)

Plans and resources to do all of these
things are just starting now, with the first release of e4 targeted for
June 2010.

Compatibility is a big issue: some contributors
feel compatibility statements will stifle innovation, but most point out
that if there isn't compatibility we'd be branching the Eclipse community.
The general opinion was that we need to provide compatibility with the
current API via optional .compatibility plugins (as in Eclipse v2 ->
v3), and any API breakage would have to be kept to a minimum and well documented.
Any internal/non-standard usage will be broken.

Several current WTP components will
likely have a larger role in e4 due to the increased use of _javascript_
and CSS in the platform. The e4 team wants to self-host as soon as possible,
so having _javascript_ and CSS tools in the platform SDK was listed as a
top priority. As the client/server (OSGi runtime) use increases, our JSP
and server tools may become important to them as well.

The regular Eclipse release train will
continue with Eclipse 3.5 (June 2009) and 3.6 (June 2010), and we expect
further releases after that. The amount of new features in these releases
will drop over time, but we expect maintenance releases will continue indefinitely
even if e4 is a success.

Thanks,
Tim deBoer
Eclipse WTP PMC, RAD Release Architect and WebSphere Tools - IBM Canada
(905) 413-3503  (tieline 969)
deboer@xxxxxxxxxx