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| <h1> |
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| Eclipse Project<br> |
| |
| DRAFT 2.1 Plan</h1> |
| |
| <p>Last revised Friday, August 30, 2002<br> |
| <br> |
| <i> Please send comments about this draft plan to the </i><a href="mailto:eclipse-dev@eclipse.org">eclipse-dev@eclipse.org</a> |
| <i>developer mailing list.</i> </p> |
| |
| <p>This document lays out the feature and API set for the next feature release |
| of Eclipse, designated release 2.1. |
| <p>Plans do not materialize out of nowhere, nor are they entirely static. To make |
| the planning process more transparent and open to the Eclipse community, we |
| (the Eclipse PMC) are posting the plan in an embryonic form and are revising |
| it throughout the release cycle. |
| <p>The first part of the plan |
| deals with the important matters of release deliverables, release milestones, |
| target operating environments, and release-to-release compatibility. These are |
| all things that need to be clear for any release, even if no features were to |
| change. <p>The remainder of the plan consists of plan items for the various |
| Eclipse subprojects. Each plan item covers a feature or API that is to be added |
| to Eclipse, or some aspect of Eclipse that is to be improved. Each plan item has |
| a title and a concise summary (usually a single paragraph) that explains the |
| work item at a suitably high enough level so that everyone can readily |
| understand what the work item is without having to understand the nitty-gritty |
| details (which can be hashed out elsewhere). |
| <p>Not all plan items represent the same amount of work; some may be quite large, |
| others, quite small. Some plan items may involve work that is localized to a |
| single Platform component; others may involve coordinated changes to several |
| components; other may pervade the entire Platform. |
| <p>With the previous release as the starting point, this is the plan for how we |
| will enhance and improve it. Fixing bugs, improving test coverage, documentation, |
| examples, etc. are considered routine ongoing maintenance activities and are |
| not included in this plan unless they would also involve a significant change |
| to the API or feature set, or involve a significant amount of work. All interesting |
| feature work is accounted for in this plan. |
| <p>The current status of each plan item is |
| noted: |
| <ul> |
| <li><b>Proposed</b> plan item - A proposal for an aspect to work on for the |
| release. After due consideration, a proposal will either be committed, |
| rejected, or deferred.</li> |
| <li><b>Committed</b> plan item - A committed plan item is one that we have decided |
| to address for the release.</li> |
| <li><b>Deferred</b> plan item - A reasonable proposal that did not make it in |
| to this release for some reason is marked as deferred with a brief note as |
| to why they were deferred. Deferred plan items may resurface as proposed plan |
| items at a later point.</li> |
| <li><b>Rejected</b> plan item - Plan items that were proposed but judged unworkable |
| are marked as rejected plan items, with an accompanying summary of why they |
| were dismissed. Keeping track of rejected items avoids repeating the discussion.</li> |
| </ul> |
| <h2>Release deliverables</h2> |
| |
| <p>The release deliverables have the same form as previous releases, namely: |
| |
| <ul> |
| |
| <li>Source code release for Eclipse Project, available as versions tagged "R2_1" |
| in the Eclipse Project <a href="http://dev.eclipse.org/viewcvs/">CVS repository</a>.</li> |
| |
| <li>Eclipse Project SDK (includes Platform, JDT, and PDE source zips) |
| |
| (downloadable).</li> |
| |
| <li>Eclipse Platform runtime binary distribution (downloadable).</li> |
| |
| <li>JDT runtime binary distribution (downloadable).</li> |
| |
| <li>Eclipse SDK Examples (downloadable).</li> |
| |
| </ul> |
| |
| <h2><a name="Milestones"></a>Release milestones</h2> |
| |
| <p>Release milestone occurring at roughly monthly intervals exist to facilitate |
| coarse-grained planning and staging. The milestones for the remainder of this |
| year are:</p> |
| |
| <ul> |
| <li>September 20, 2002 - Milestone 1 - (2.1 M1) - stable build reflecting progress</li> |
| <li>October 18, 2002 - Milestone 2 - (2.1 M2) - stable build reflecting progress</li> |
| <li>November 15, 2002 - Milestone 3 - (2.1 M3) - stable build reflecting |
| progress</li> |
| <li>December 13, 2002 - Milestone 4 - (2.1 M4) - stable build reflecting |
| progress</li> |
| </ul> |
| |
| <p> Additional 2003 milestones will be added later. Our target |
| is to complete 2.1 late in 1Q2003. All release deliverables will be available for download as |
| soon as the release has been tested and validated in the target operating configurations |
| listed below.</p> |
| |
| <h2>Target Operating Environments</h2> |
| |
| |
| |
| <p>In order to remain current, each Eclipse release targets reasonably current |
| versions of the underlying operating environments.</p> |
| |
| <p>Most of the Eclipse SDK is "pure" Java code and has no direct |
| dependence on the underlying operating system. The chief dependence is therefore |
| on the Java 2 Platform itself. The 2.0 release of the Eclipse Project is written |
| and compiled against version 1.3 of the Java 2 Platform APIs, and targeted to |
| run on either version 1.3 or 1.4 of the Java 2 Runtime Environment, Standard |
| Edition.</p> |
| <p>Eclipse SDK 2.0 has been tested and validated on the following Java 2 |
| Platform implementations:</p> |
| <table width="91%" border="1"> |
| <tbody> |
| <tr> |
| <td width="19%"><b>Operating system</b></td> |
| <td width="24%"><b>Processor architecture</b></td> |
| <td width="73%"><b>Java 2 Platforms</b></td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td width="19%" rowSpan="3">Microsoft®<br> |
| Windows®</td> |
| <td width="24%" rowSpan="3">Intel x86</td> |
| <td width="73%">Sun Java 2 SDK, Standard Edition, version 1.3.1 for |
| Microsoft Windows</td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td width="73%">IBM Developer Kit for Windows, Java 2 Technology Edition, |
| version 1.3.0</td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td width="73%">Sun Java 2 SDK, Standard Edition, version 1.4 for |
| Microsoft Windows</td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td width="19%" rowSpan="3">Linux</td> |
| <td width="24%" rowSpan="3">Intel x86</td> |
| <td width="73%">Sun Java 2 SDK, Standard Edition, version 1.3.1 for Linux |
| x86</td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td width="73%">IBM Developer Kit for Linux, Java 2 Technology Edition, |
| version 1.3.0</td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td width="73%">Sun Java 2 SDK, Standard Edition, version 1.4 for Linux |
| x86</td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td width="19%" rowSpan="2">Sun Solaris</td> |
| <td width="24%" rowSpan="2">SPARC</td> |
| <td width="73%">Sun Java 2 SDK, Standard Edition, version 1.3.1 for |
| Solaris SPARC</td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td width="73%">Sun Java 2 SDK, Standard Edition, version 1.4 for Solaris |
| SPARC</td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td width="19%">HP HP-UX</td> |
| <td width="24%">hp9000 PA-RISC</td> |
| <td width="73%"><span class="header">HP-UX SDK for the Java 2 platform, |
| version 1.3.1 for hp9000 PA-RISC</span></td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td width="19%">IBM® AIX</td> |
| <td width="24%">PowerPC</td> |
| <td width="73%">IBM Developer Kit for AIX, Java 2 Technology Edition, |
| version 1.3.0</td> |
| </tr> |
| </tbody> |
| </table> |
| <p><span class="header">The following table describes the combinations of |
| operating system and Java 2 Platform used when testing the Eclipse SDK |
| configurations. The status column indicates the level of testing: |
| "Primary" means a full tested configuration; "</span>Secondary" |
| means a configuration which is only lightly tested; "Untested" means a |
| configuration that has received no testing, but which should work.</p> |
| <table width="91%" border="1"> |
| <tbody> |
| <tr> |
| <td width="11%"><b>Window system</b></td> |
| <td width="28%"><b>Java 2 Platform<br> |
| (see above table)</b></td> |
| <td width="42%"><b>Operating Environment</b></td> |
| <td width="19%"><b>Testing Status</b></td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td width="11%" rowSpan="5">Win32</td> |
| <td width="28%" rowSpan="5">Windows on Intel x86</td> |
| <td width="42%">Windows 2000</td> |
| <td width="19%">Primary</td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td width="42%">Windows XP</td> |
| <td width="19%">Primary</td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td width="42%">Windows ME</td> |
| <td width="19%">Secondary</td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td width="42%">Windows 98SE</td> |
| <td width="19%">Secondary</td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td width="42%">Windows NT</td> |
| <td width="19%">Secondary</td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td width="11%" rowSpan="6">Motif</td> |
| <td width="28%" rowSpan="3"> |
| <p>Linux on Intel x86</p> |
| <p> </p> |
| </td> |
| <td width="42%">RedHat Linux 7.2 x86</td> |
| <td width="19%">Primary</td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td width="42%">SuSE Linux 7.3 x86</td> |
| <td width="19%">Primary</td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td width="42%">Other Linux; kernel version 2.4.7, and XFree86 version |
| 4.1.0</td> |
| <td width="19%">Untested</td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td width="28%">Solaris on SPARC </td> |
| <td width="42%">Sun Solaris 8 SPARC</td> |
| <td width="19%">Primary</td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td width="28%">HP-UX on hp9000 PA-RISC</td> |
| <td width="42%">HP-UX 11i hp9000</td> |
| <td width="19%">Primary</td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td width="28%">AIX on PowerPC</td> |
| <td width="42%">IBM AIX 5.1 on PowerPC</td> |
| <td width="19%">Primary</td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td width="11%" rowSpan="3">GTK</td> |
| <td width="28%" rowSpan="3">Linux on Intel x86</td> |
| <td width="42%">RedHat Linux 7.2 x86 GTK 2.0</td> |
| <td width="19%">Primary</td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td width="42%">SuSE Linux 7.3 x86 GTK 2.0</td> |
| <td width="19%">Primary</td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td width="42%">Other Linux; kernel version 2.4.7, and GTK 2.0</td> |
| <td width="19%">Untested</td> |
| </tr> |
| </tbody> |
| </table> |
| <h4>Internationalization</h4> |
| <p>The Eclipse Platform is designed as the basis for internationalized products. |
| The user interface elements provided by the Eclipse SDK components, including |
| dialogs and error messages, are externalized. The English strings are provided |
| as the default resource bundles.</p> |
| <p>Latin-1 locales are supported by the Eclipse SDK on all of the above |
| operating environments; DBCS and BIDI locales are supported by the Eclipse SDK |
| only on Windows operating environments. |
| <p>The Eclipse SDK supports GB 18030, the new Chinese code page standard, on |
| Windows 2000 and XP only. Note that GB 18030 also requires locale and character |
| encoding support from the Java 2 Runtime Environment; this support is standard |
| in version 1.4, and also available in some 1.3 JREs. |
| <p>German and Japanese locales have been tested. |
| <h4>BIDI support</h4> |
| <p>The Eclipse SDK is a development environment targeted at technical |
| professionals - not an end user application. However, the Eclipse SDK tools will |
| permit technical professionals who are working in English to build Hebrew/Arabic |
| end user Java programs which are themselves not based on the Eclipse SDK. The |
| BIDI support in the Eclipse SDK allows a Java programmer to work with BIDI |
| strings, code comments, etc. but the Eclipse SDK itself is not designed to be |
| localized for BIDI locales and its widget orientation can not be changed.</p> |
| <p><i>IMPORTANT: The above BIDI support is available only on Windows platforms.</i></p> |
| |
| <h2> |
| |
| Compatibility with Previous Releases</h2> |
| |
| <p> |
| |
| It is a given that Eclipse 2.1 will be upwards compatible with Eclipse 2.0. And |
| incompatible break with the past this early on would be both unwelcome and |
| unwarranted.</p> |
| |
| <h3> |
| |
| Compatibility of Release 2.1 with 2.0</h3> |
| |
| The Eclipse SDK 2.1 will be upwards compatible with the Eclipse SDK 2.0 to the |
| greatest extent possible. We anticipate a small number of areas where slavishly |
| maintaining compatibility would not be in the best interests of the Platform or |
| its clients. All such exceptions will be noted in the 2.1 release notes so that |
| clients can assess the impact of these changes on their plug-ins and products. |
| |
| <p><b>API Contract Compatibility:</b> The Eclipse SDK 2.1 will be upwards contract-compatible |
| with the Eclipse SDK 2.0 unless noted. This means that programs in full compliance |
| with contracts specified in the Eclipse SDK 2.0 APIs will automatically be in |
| full compliance with the Eclipse SDK 2.1 APIs. (API is construed broadly to |
| include such things as plug-in extension points.) Downward contract compatibility |
| is not supported. There is no guarantee that compliance with the Eclipse SDK |
| 2.1 APIs would ensure compliance with the Eclipse SDK 2.0 APIs. |
| <p><b>Binary (plug-in) Compatibility:</b> The Eclipse SDK 2.1 will be upwards |
| binary-compatible with the Eclipse SDK 2.0 unless noted. This means that plug-ins |
| built for the Eclipse SDK 2.0 will continue to work correctly in the Eclipse |
| SDK 2.1 without change. Downward plug-in compatibility is not supported. Plug-ins |
| for the Eclipse SDK 2.1 are unlikely to be usable in the Eclipse SDK 2.0. Plug-ins |
| with hard-coded references in their plug-in manifest file to 2.0 versions of |
| prerequisite Eclipse Project plug-ins will work in 2.1 provided the version match |
| rule is "greaterOrEqual" |
| or "compatible" (the default); references |
| using "perfect" or "equivalent" match rules will be broken. |
| <p><b>Source Compatibility:</b> The Eclipse SDK 2.1 will be upwards source-compatible |
| with the Eclipse SDK 2.0 unless noted. This means that source files written |
| to use the Eclipse SDK 2.0 APIs can be successfully compiled and run against |
| the Eclipse SDK 2.1 APIs. Since source incompatibilities are easy to deal with, |
| maintaining source compatibility is considered much less important than maintaining |
| contract and binary compatibility. Downward source compatibility is not supported. |
| If source files use new Eclipse SDK APIs, they will not be usable with an earlier |
| version of the Eclipse SDK. |
| <p><b>Workspace Compatibility:</b> Eclipse SDK 2.1 will be upwards |
| |
| workspace-compatible with Eclipse SDK 2.0 unless noted. This means that |
| |
| workspaces and projects created with Eclipse SDK 2.0 can be successfully opened by Eclipse SDK |
| 2.1 and upgraded to a 2.1 workspace. Individual plug-ins developed for |
| |
| Eclipse SDK 2.0 should provide similar upwards compatibility for their workspace |
| |
| metadata; plug-in developers are responsible for ensuring that their plug-ins |
| |
| recognize 2.0 metadata and process it appropriately. User interface session state may be discarded |
| when a workspace is upgraded. Downward workspace compatibility is not supported. A workspace created |
| |
| (or opened) by Eclipse SDK 2.1 will be unusable with an earlier version |
| |
| of Eclipse SDK. |
| |
| <p><b>Non-compliant usage of API's</b>: All non-API methods and classes, and certainly |
| everything in a package with "internal" in its name, are considered |
| implementation details which may vary between operating environment and are |
| subject to change without notice. Client plug-ins that directly depend on anything |
| other than what is specified in the Eclipse SDK API are inherently unsupportable |
| and receive no guarantees about compatibility within a single release much less |
| with an earlier release. Refer to <i><a href="http://www.eclipse.org/articles/Article-API%20use/eclipse-api-usage-rules.html">How |
| to Use the Eclipse API</a></i> for information about how to write compliant |
| plug-ins. |
| |
| <h2> Eclipse Project Subprojects</h2> |
| |
| The Eclipse Project consists of 3 subprojects. Each subproject |
| |
| is covered in its own section: |
| |
| <blockquote><a href="#Eclipse Platform subproject">Eclipse Platform</a> |
| |
| <br><a href="#Java development tooling (JDT) subproject">JDT - Java development tooling</a> |
| |
| <br><a href="#Plug-in development environment (PDE) subproject">PDE - Plug-in development environment</a></blockquote> |
| |
| <p>For each subproject, the items listed reflect new features of the Eclipse Platform, |
| or areas where existing features will be significantly reworked. Each item indicates |
| the components affected by that work item (many items involve coordinated changes |
| to several components). |
| |
| <h3> |
| |
| <a name="Eclipse Platform subproject">Eclipse Platform subproject</a></h3> |
| |
| The Eclipse Platform provides the most fundamental building blocks. The following items reflect new features of the Eclipse Platform, or areas |
| |
| where existing features will be significantly reworked. |
| <h4>Proposed Items (Eclipse Platform subproject)</h4> |
| <blockquote> |
| <p><b>Improved Platform startup times</b>. Progress was made to improve |
| startup times in 2.0; however, additional improvements are needed. In addition, we need to investigate deferring (or partially omitting) the |
| recovery of the UI state. [Platform Core, Platform UI]</p> |
| <p><b>User configurable key bindings.</b> Ability for user to redefine the |
| key bindings for the editor and the menu accelerators. [Platform UI]</p> |
| <p><b>Improve support for cheat sheets</b>. A cheat sheet is an instance |
| of a simple kind of workflow support. The Welcome Page editor is a simple |
| example of a cheat sheet. We will provide a standard API for creating cheat |
| sheets. [Platform UI]</p> |
| </blockquote> |
| <h4>Committed Items (Eclipse Platform subproject)</h4> |
| <blockquote> |
| <p><i>None at this time.</i></p> |
| </blockquote> |
| <h4>Deferred Items (Eclipse Platform subproject)</h4> |
| <blockquote> |
| <p><i>None at this time.</i></p> |
| </blockquote> |
| <h4>Dismissed Items (Eclipse Platform subproject)</h4> |
| <blockquote> |
| <p><i>None at this time.</i></p> |
| </blockquote> |
| |
| |
| |
| <p>(End of items for Eclipse Platform subproject.) |
| |
| |
| |
| <h3> |
| |
| <a name="Java development tooling (JDT) subproject">Java development tooling (JDT) subproject</a></h3> |
| |
| <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/jdt/index.html"> |
| |
| Java development tooling</a> (JDT) implements a Java IDE based on the Eclipse |
| |
| Platform. |
| |
| The following work items reflect new features of JDT, or areas where existing |
| |
| features will be significantly reworked. |
| <h4>Proposed Items (Eclipse JDT subproject)</h4> |
| <blockquote> |
| <p><b>Building projects with circular dependencies.</b> Some users are |
| experiencing difficulty partitioning their work into |
| independently-buildable projects. We want to add a mechanism to allow mutually dependent projects to be |
| built |
| successfully, while preserving current project build order behavior.</p> |
| <p><b>More flexible project layout. </b>Support build output folders that are outside of the |
| workspace.</p> |
| </blockquote> |
| <h4>Committed Items (Eclipse JDT subproject)</h4> |
| <blockquote> |
| <p><i>None at this time.</i></p> |
| </blockquote> |
| <h4>Deferred Items (Eclipse JDT subproject)</h4> |
| <blockquote> |
| <p><i>None at this time.</i></p> |
| </blockquote> |
| <h4>Dismissed Items (Eclipse JDT subproject)</h4> |
| <blockquote> |
| <p><i>None at this time.</i></p> |
| </blockquote> |
| |
| |
| |
| <p>(End of items for Eclipse JDT subproject.) |
| |
| |
| |
| <h3> |
| |
| <a name="Plug-in development environment (PDE) subproject">Plug-in development environment (PDE) subproject</a></h3> |
| |
| The <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/pde/index.html"> plug-in development environment</a> |
| (PDE) consists of tools for developing plug-ins for the Eclipse Platform. |
| |
| The following work items reflect new features of PDE, or areas where existing |
| |
| features will be significantly reworked. |
| <h4>Proposed Items (Eclipse PDE subproject)</h4> |
| <blockquote> |
| <p><i>None at this time.</i></p> |
| </blockquote> |
| <h4>Committed Items (Eclipse PDE subproject)</h4> |
| <blockquote> |
| <p><i>None at this time.</i></p> |
| </blockquote> |
| <h4>Deferred Items (Eclipse PDE subproject)</h4> |
| <blockquote> |
| <p><i>None at this time.</i></p> |
| </blockquote> |
| <h4>Dismissed Items (Eclipse PDE subproject)</h4> |
| <blockquote> |
| <p><i>None at this time.</i></p> |
| </blockquote> |
| |
| |
| |
| <p>(End of items for Eclipse PDE subproject.) |
| |
| </body> |
| |
| </html> |
| |
