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April 2, 2009

2

How Twitter solved my P2 problems during my lunch break

Today, I wanted to migrate from Eclipse 3.5M5 to Eclipse 3.6M6 (I know, it's a bit late for that already - but then, I had been busy with #eclipsecon and preparing the Stupid Modeling Talk during the past weeks).

As of course I've got quite a number of additional bundles installed (e.g., EMF, Window Builder, Mylyn, Xpand and Xtend), I wanted to re-use them. I recalled that a while back someone (probably Chris?) blogged that it basically is possible to use an existing Eclipse installation as a local update site. However, I couldn't find the blog posting describing how to do that.

Given the fact it was about lunch time, I decided to let the #wisecrowd figure out how to solve my problem. So I twittered "desperately looking for a hint how to use an existing Eclipse install as a P2 repo. Goal:transport features from my M5 install to a fresh M6".

So, during my lunch break, the wise crowd (Kai, Ekke, Boris and Paul) sent me their opinions on the matter:

How Twitter solved my P2 problem during my lunch break

At first, it seemed like there is no solution, but in the end Paul's tweet reveals the solution I was looking for:

Add eclipse/p2/org.eclipse.equinox.p2.engine/profileRegistry/SDKProfile.profile/ as a local update site.

All of you out there who still doubt the practical use of Twitter: you really should give it another try.

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  • Luzi Anderegg

    Cool!

    … and why does it work?

  • http://hwellmann.blogspot.com Harald Wellmann

    Stupid Modelling – yes, that about sums it up ;-) Unfortunately, that gPublication link only displays a blank screen in my browser, so it would be nice if you could provide a plain old PDF link.

    Looking at the abstract, I’d actually subscribe to most of the statements. I think you guys are preaching to the converted most of the time, which is not the best way of spreading the word, assuming there is at least some truth in your gospel. Take a look at the EMF or OAW websites: lots of namedropping and no clear messages. If they cannot state clearly on the very homepage 1) what problem they’re trying to solve and 2) what benefits their solution has, then why should anybody bother to read on? And the tutorials there are either too simplistic or too advanced for beginners.

    Oh, and you forgot another reason: It’s old wine in new bottles.

    People have been writing their own languages using yacc or Antlr and generating code from them for decades – and now you call it a DSL: cool, so I’ve been using DSLs all these years without knowing ;-) Ever heard of SDL? (No, that’s not just a typo or a permutation.) Graphical modelling and code generation ever since the 1980s…. (And a ghastly toolset with vendor lock-in and insufficient integration.)