Eclipse as part of the ports/java tree?

Achilleus Mantzios achill at matrix.gatewaynet.com
Thu Sep 1 07:59:42 GMT 2005


Just my 2 cents from a user's 'perspective' :)

First off, i believe FreeBSD people must stop running as hell
behind any project on this earth, and let instead the guys
behind this project provide builds for FreeBSD
(maybe with the supervision/help of some FreeBSD people),
but definetately *those guys* must do the hard part.

I dont see why an HP-UX or solaris or AIX port is more important
than a *BSD one. So they better start considering BSDs too.
(A monthly maintenance fee from a customer (most likely a bank) running
MVS, DB2, CICS and many other fine IBM s/w would suffice to feed the 
developer in hand and his family for a year).
Sorry for the bitter tone here, but once i was a proud
mainframe system *programmer* (thanks god not anymore).

Second, i believe this eclipse plugin issue is complete paranoia.
Eclipse already provides a plugin management mechanism.
The first time in my life i needed EMF (2.1.0) i had to use
eclipse's mechanism and NOT the port (2.0.1).

If JNI is not involved why not just let users manage their own
pluggins?

The /usr/ports eclipse plugin approach seem appropriate
for machines whith many users (campus, sw dev companies, etc)
and SLOW internet connections, which doesnt comprise
a sufficient large community i suppose.
Also this way potential newbies dont get confused
on which way to go, the ports way or the 
"Help->Software Updates->Find and Install" way.

I believe that ports should exist under java
(yes eclipse is 99% about java) only
when native code is an issue.

And third, 
i dont embrase the "do it all with ports" philosophy,
PostgreSQL being a major example of when not to use ports 
(for update, ok i mean portupgrade here).
Although the ports provide a fine abstraction of the software management, 
some additional homework needs to be individually done for many ports.

I mean the ports (being as great as they are), by nature,
they cant beat much simpler problems than eclipse's problem.

Why tweak with the (generally excellent) ports tree
just for eclipse??

I think eclipse was made from IBM surely not from
the purest open source feelings.
Eclipse one day may be gone.
Ports are here to stay for a long time.

-- 
-Achilleus



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