Friday, June 24, 2011

Update Eclipse to use JDT Java 7 features

In a previous post, Eclipse java 7 support, I talked about the progress of java 7 related work in JDT. However, back then, there was no way of testing/using the java 7 features without downloading the relevant source code and launching another instance of Eclipse from that. The good news now is that it has become easier to use/test the java 7 features by updating Eclipse the P2 way i.e. "Install new software" option.

A wiki page tells you how to do that. So, go ahead enjoy JDT's java 7 features. Please file any bugs, or enhancement ideas you find/have in the compiler, content assist, code select and java search here with the [1.7] tag in the "Summary". This is still a work in progress and even though a lot of work has been done and several new compiler and UI options have been introduced for java 7, we're still working on new features and testing/improving the ones already implemented. More details about the state of the art are available on http://wiki.eclipse.org/JDT_Core/Java7 and http://wiki.eclipse.org/JDT_UI/Java7.

Note: This is an implementation of an early-draft specification developed under the Java Community Process (JCP) and is made available for testing and evaluation purposes only. The code is not compatible with any specification of the JCP.

9 comments:

  1. "...by updating Eclipse the P2 way i.e. "Install new software" option...." Please, God, no...anything but that.

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  2. Why? You make it sound so evil! Please do mention why you seem to hate it so much :)

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  3. Because if any of the repos are down, or the connection is flakey, then you're stuffed. I have wasted hours of my life watching the message "Fetching children of Helios..." The old way of unzipping an archive works 100% of the time.

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  4. That may happen if you have a poor internet connection. You can use whatever's more convenient to you, but in some situations, such as the above when there's nothing to unzip, for example, or when you want to update your build, P2 comes in really handy. :)

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  5. No, it happens even with the best internet connection. P2 has a massive inherent failure point - it depends upon the reliability of all repo hosts being accessible. If one is down, it's game over for the whole update process. And you may only discover this after hours of wasted time. In conclusion, the whole "P2" experiment is an unmitigated disaster and should be put where it belongs, in the trash.

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  6. Yup I agree that the failure to connect with even 1 repo will stop the whole process. These, and some other valid concerns are being worked out and the list of bugs can be accessed at https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/buglist.cgi?query_format=advanced&short_desc_type=allwordssubstr&short_desc=&classification=RT&product=Equinox&component=p2&longdesc_type=allwordssubstr&longdesc=&bug_file_loc_type=allwordssubstr&bug_file_loc=&status_whiteboard_type=allwordssubstr&status_whiteboard=&keywords_type=allwords&keywords=&bug_status=UNCONFIRMED&bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&emailtype1=substring&email1=&emailtype2=substring&email2=&bug_id_type=anyexact&bug_id=&votes=&chfieldfrom=&chfieldto=Now&chfieldvalue=&cmdtype=doit&order=Importance&field0-0-0=noop&type0-0-0=noop&value0-0-0=

    You can also raise a bug and I'm sure the developers in P2 will respond.

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  7. Hmm...884 open bugs. Perhaps we could combine all of these into just one feature request - "Ditch P2, it doesn't work".

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  8. Hi, java 7 , not a good solution at least until now, 2012 jan, why?
    Eclipse can't use "Install new software" (online) feature any more, just stays blocked at "fetching children of" message.

    Test environment ,HP DV7 2270us, win 7 64 ultimate new installed ,java 7 jdk 64 from oracle.
    I installed eclipse indigo 3.7.1,and update didn't work, not one single time, i tried for hours, my first thought , "god they did it again , eclipse problem, (like many others, like file corruption when using eclipse UI drop down feature to copy files, hopfully not a vital problem)", then i tried the old version witch was ok with this feature, 3.6.2, Same problem, strange, what is different? java 7, -> kill java 7 -> install java 6, all problems fixed. I waste hours and i have new white hair now...

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  9. Hi Unknown, we already support Java 7 in the Indigo 3.7.1 release. There's no need to do any update any longer. Please use the 3.7.1 build and you can use java 7. Thanks!

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