[jbosside-dev] Re: About feature.xml and bundling plugins (WAS: jBPM Designer feature.xml needs to be updated)

[Max Rydahl Andersen]

> - Neither the Eclipse IDE build (Export->Deployable Features) nor the
> Eclipse PDE build (with the myriad of customTargets.xml,
> mainTargets.xml, etc files) support apparently building a feature and
> bundling additional plugins where you don't specify the plugins that you
> want to have bundled between <plugin> tags in your feature.xml
> - Why exactly is it then that our 'old/current' way of bundling things
> is so 'wrong'?

Because if user updates WTP 1.5 to WTP 1.5.1 it won't work anymore since
we have *specifc* version numbers in there.


> The only real valuable reason I see (for now) is Robs comment: 'I'm just
> happy manual updating will go away'. But then I lose the ability to
> build from the Eclipse IDE... Moreover, I always thought that the
> feature.xml *has* to specify all plugins that the feature bundles, there
> is nothing 'evil' about that as I understand it. Additionally, doing
> this process 'automagically' through an ant task can indeed solve a lot
> of manual work, but then the information has become implicit and hence
> undocumented. I may be way late with all my ramblings and thoughts, but
> I am not so sure anymore if this is the way to go.

The ide support for building plugins is not meant for building of  
*distribution* of
other dependent features, but for building *deployable* features/plugins
into existing projects.

> Can someone convince me with some real advantages?

Because it breaks updatemanager, because noone else do it this way, because
we should not dictate specific versions down to fix/micro  
number.....enough reason ? :)


-- 
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Max Rydahl Andersen
callto://max.rydahl.andersen

Hibernate
max at hibernate.org
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JBoss a division of Red Hat
max.andersen at jboss.com