Hi,
Eclipse can contains a lot of different feature set via plugins. Do you install all the plugins in one single eclipse? or do you install STS from spring, Flex eclipse from adobe, or even RCP development bundle from eclipse.org, every eclipse variant handle its task respectively?
Which way do you prefer and why? speedy response? avoid the hassle of updating/installing plugins?
Thanks
In eclipse I prefer to install them separately, because it seems to keep things running smoothly, no upgrading things as they come along, only as a whole thing, it makes for a lot of duplication though... With Netbeans (which I prefer) I generally install everything in one place and it too runs smoothly, even when I upgrade different plugins and add and remove other ones.
If you have enough power on your workstation (and the right eclipse.ini), you can:
install all the major plugins in one operation (choosing the most complete distro, like the J2EE one)
install any other external plugins in a shared directory (meaning those plugins will continue to be referenced by any new version of eclipse distro you may install in the future)
I separate groups of related plugins/features by defining separate install locations (You used to be able to do it through the IDE, can't find the right button at the moment, see here for some guidance on doing this manually). That way you can enable/disable groups if you need to. The install locations can also be shared between different Eclipse installs (with care!), and if you completely trash or want to upgrade Eclipse, you can redefine the eternal locations on the new install, no downloads needed.