eclipse-pydev: New upstream release 1.3.13 avaible

[Kristian Rink]

Am Mon, 18 Feb 2008 21:59:41 -0800
schrieb Nick Stinemates <nick at stinemates.org>:

> I think for packages such as these, a generic way to install it in an
> Ubuntu like fashion -- i.e, putting it in proper/guessable directory
> structure -- is the draw to having it done through Synaptic.

I am definitely torn about that, absolutely unsure whether having
an application platform like Eclipse installable using syn(apt)ic is
desirable. Imagine this situation:

- Somebody used to working with Eclipse moves from Windows to Ubuntu
and discovers that Ubuntu In Its Undisputable Greatness already comes
with Eclipse in its repository. "apt-get install eclipse-sdk", and
things seem fine.

- However, by then, one is possibly used to working with the Eclipse
Update Manager, so possibly after installing the Eclipse SDK via
synaptic, making use of this facility provided by Eclipse to install
some additional features and uninstall some others.

By then, her/his system will be in an utterly inconsistent state -
installing any additional Eclipse packages provided in the repository
via apt is likely to end up in modules not running as these packages
might depend upon modules in the SDK the user has chosen to remove
using the package manager. 

As soon as the user decides to, say, upgrade to a new release however,
this might change, as apt, vice versa, doesn't know about packages
manually installed using the Eclipse Update Manager and thus won't
hesitate updating Eclipse components from the repository even at the
risk of breaking manually installed packages depending upon the
versions installed. Also not a situation desirable. From that point of
view, as said, I generally question what's the point in packaging
Eclipse for Ubuntu, as so far I just have seen trouble growing out of
that, having a rather small comfort in return (given that installing
Eclipse without apt is as difficult as downloading and extracting a .zip
file...).


> I believe I misread the initial tone, and is definitely why I encased
> it in <rant> tag's as well ;)
> 

Well, yes. :) It possibly wasn't a "real" rant. But, actually, on the
German ubuntu forums, I more than once helped resolving issues related
to getting different modules to work with Ubuntu-packaged Eclipse, and
in all these situations, it seemed the problems suddenly were all gone
as soon as using a "vanilla" Eclipse and installing packages using the
_Eclipse_ way, not the Ubuntu way. From that point of view, I wonder
whether not having Eclipse available via the Ubuntu repos would be a
better solution than having (no offense to those who build the Eclipse
packages) a half-baked solution that breaks either apt or Eclipse
Update Manager. To push that even further, I think the only meaningful
way to package an application like Eclipse for Ubuntu/Debian would be
to fully integrate also the two different package managements - changes
made to the Eclipse distribution via apt should be visible in Eclipse
Update Manager (which possibly is the easier solution, I guess), as
well as installing custom packages using the Eclipse Update Manager
need to be visible to apt (which is incredibly more difficult, I
suppose). However, without this integration, managing Eclipse
installations through apt always will be likely to cause more pain than
benefit...

Cheers & best regards,
Kristian



-- 
Kristian Rink * http://zimmer428.net * http://flickr.com/photos/z428/
jab: kawazu at jabber.ccc.de * icq: 48874445 * fon: ++49 176 2447 2771
"One dreaming alone, it will be only a dream; many dreaming together
is the beginning of a new reality." (Hundertwasser)