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Bug 167438

Summary: Rename PDE to reflect its evolving role
Product: [Eclipse Project] PDE Reporter: Ed Burnette <ed.burnette>
Component: UIAssignee: PDE-UI-Inbox <pde-ui-inbox>
Status: CLOSED DUPLICATE QA Contact:
Severity: enhancement    
Priority: P3 CC: bogofilter+eclipse.org, bpasero, caniszczyk, contact, curtis.windatt.public, djo, dsciamma, email, gunnar, irbull, jeffmcaffer, mlists, nbeyer, wmitsuda
Version: 3.3   
Target Milestone: ---   
Hardware: PC   
OS: Windows XP   
Whiteboard:

Description Ed Burnette CLA 2006-12-11 10:30:16 EST 
Developers are using PDE in ways it was never originally intended. To reflect these new uses and to promote more of this sort of thing, I suggest that PDE (Plug-in Development Environment) be renamed.

Here are a few examples of the new ways PDE is being used:

1. Apache Harmony uses PDE to develop and organize modules for implementation of Java (see http://wassim-melhem.blogspot.com/2006/04/pde-harmony-and-foosball-prodigy.html).

2. David Orme uses PDE to develop SWT applications (see https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=122527#c38 and https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=122527#c39).

3. PDE is being used to develop OSGi applications (see http://help.eclipse.org/help32/topic/org.eclipse.pde.doc.user/whatsNew/pde_whatsnew.htm and http://www.osgi.org/blog/2006/07/eclipse-pde-versus-jdeant.html)

4. Tool support will be needed for one or both of the two flavors of modules currently being discussed in the JCP (see http://jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=277 and http://jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=294).

See also related bug 154079 .

Since these use cases have little or nothing to do with "Eclipse plug-ins", it's too limiting to call this the "Plug-in Development Environment". One possible better name would be the "Module Development Environment (MDE)", though care should be taken not to make acronyms that would be confused with "modeling".

Whether you call them modules, super packages, bundles, plug-ins, versioned jars, add-ins, components, Maven artifacts, or moon rocks, all these things have some fundamental concepts in common like dependencies and versions. Renaming would just be the first step in generalizing PDE to cover them all. A renamed and generalized "Eclipse MDE" can provide support for this in a way that no other tool currently can.
Comment 1 Ed Burnette CLA 2006-12-11 11:20:43 EST 
Point 4 should also have mentioned: http://jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=291 .
Comment 2 Dave Orme CLA 2006-12-11 13:06:31 EST 
+1.
Comment 3 Dave Orme CLA 2006-12-11 13:08:38 EST 
This should probably be raised to the Foundation level.

I'll email the committer reps.  Could someone lobby the Addin provider reps and some of the Strategic [developer|consumer] members?
Comment 4 Gunnar Wagenknecht CLA 2006-12-11 13:09:52 EST 
I agree that the term Plug-in Development Environment doesn't indicate the full
power of PDE.
Comment 5 Dejan Glozic CLA 2006-12-11 13:25:17 EST 
I would caution against putting the cart ahead of the horse. The simple fact that people use PDE for many things that it was not originally designed for does not mean that we actually want to venture into all these different use cases. Renaming PDE at this state would imply our willingness to commit code, resources and support, which is a more serious step than simply seeing people doing interesting things with it.

I would prefer if the renaming of PDE is the last, not the first step in making this fundamental change of PDE's mission.
Comment 6 Dave Orme CLA 2006-12-11 13:34:43 EST 
(In reply to comment #5)
> I would caution against putting the cart ahead of the horse. The simple fact
> that people use PDE for many things that it was not originally designed for
> does not mean that we actually want to venture into all these different use
> cases.

Hmmmm... It seems we already have ventured into these use-cases. :-)

> Renaming PDE at this state would imply our willingness to commit code,
> resources and support, which is a more serious step than simply seeing people
> doing interesting things with it.

I can understand a reluctance to expand the scope of PDE.  And perhaps we need to be careful to say that we're not doing that.

Although Ed suggested several ways the scope could be expanded, I think the first step is to rename PDE to reflect how it is actually used *today*.

When folks want the additional scope, they can (a) write it themselves and contribute it (b) get some organization to contribute it.  (This is open-source, after all; if enough folks want something badly enough, *somebody* who has the skills and time will wind up being in that population and will write it.)

> I would prefer if the renaming of PDE is the last, not the first step in making
> this fundamental change of PDE's mission.

PDE is already being used in the ways Ed described.  Well, maybe not all of them.  But enough of them to warrant a name change, IMO.  :-)

So I would agree with you.  I just think that the time has already come.

Congratulations, you've been wildly successful!!!  :-D
Comment 7 Wassim Melhem CLA 2006-12-12 23:35:19 EST 
Incidentally, I just submitted an OSGi Panel discussion to EclipseCon:
http://eclipsezilla.eclipsecon.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3914

If accepted, this session will be the most exciting hour in EclipseCon history and will be much fabled in story and song for years to come.
Comment 8 Chris Aniszczyk CLA 2009-04-16 14:10:15 EDT 
*** Bug 272537 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 9 Curtis Windatt CLA 2011-06-15 13:08:14 EDT 

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 149113 ***