Re: why I think SWT should be built from eclipse

[Shaun Jackman <sjackman at gmail dot com>]

2005/10/14, Michael Koch <konqueror@gmx.de>:
> On Fri, Oct 14, 2005 at 03:21:49PM -0600, Shaun Jackman wrote:
> > Why I think SWT should be built from its own source package:
> >
> >   * SWT is a library in itself, and can and does exist outside of Eclipse.
>
> It doesnt exist yet. There are no separate releases.

True, at present there are no well-supported source releases of SWT.
Although, at one point Billy Biggs indicated this might change.

> >   * SWT is used by other applications besides Eclipse.
>
> Sure and thats no problem. But Eclipse is tied to the same release of
> SWT.

That's fine. The Eclipse and SWT package can move in unison.

> >   * If SWT were in the same source package as Eclipse,
> >     a RC bug in Eclipse would hold up SWT.
>
> If the RC were in the SWT package it will hold up itself too.
> There is a good chance that Eclipse RC bugs will be solved in time as
> we will group-maintain it to put the work on several shoulders,

If the RC bug in Eclipse is non-trivial, no amount of group
maintenance will help get it cleared up in time. Consider, for
example, a FTBFS bug in GCC that prevents Eclipse, but not SWT, from
building. This exact situation is currently holding SwingWT back. At
present, the best solution was to ask the FTP master to remove SwingWT
from testing so that SWT could migrate without it.

> >   * SWT is in main, whereas Eclipse is in contrib.
>
> lucene got uploaded to main today. tomcat5 will be uploaded on the next
> days to main. Then Eclipse will be moved to main too.

I look forward to seeing Eclipse in main.

> > If Eclipse needs patches applied against the released version of SWT,
> > then they should be so applied. This does not require maintaining an
> > entirely separate copy of SWT in Eclipse. Likewise for the security
> > argument. Do not maintain a private copy of the library; rather, use
> > the shared copy.
>
> That is what we wanna do. Provide the SWT from Eclipse as shared copy.
> Eclipse can use it because it includes the special stuff for it and
> other applications like azureus can use it that need the normal SWT.

We agree all packages should use the same binary of SWT. However, this
binary may be provided by a standalone SWT. Eclipse need not maintain
its own copy.

> The copy of SWT in Eclipse needs to get into the archive anyway as its
> part of Eclipse.

SWT may be in the Eclipse source package, but it need not be built.

Cheers,
Shaun