Is it possible for a team to use Eclipse installed on a shared network drive?

Question

Our lead programmer likes to install tools on a shared network drive to minimize effort when updating. He recently installed Eclipse to the network drive, but when I run it, I get a window that says Workspace in use or cannot be created, choose a different one. After clicking OK, I get a window that gives me a drop down menu with only one item, the workspace on his machine. I can then browse to the workspace on my machine, click OK, and Eclipse continues to start up and run just fine. There's a check box in that second window that says Use this workspace as the default that I've checked after browsing and selecting my workspace, but the next time I start up Eclipse, it reverts back to the lead's workspace.

Are we violating some assumption that Eclipse makes about the install? We're on a Linux network, if it makes a difference.

Answer 1

Eclipse stores a lot of settings, including the workspace list, in it's installation directory (especially the "configuration" directory). It's hard to say how well sharing the installation will work, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were a number of issues caused by "fighting" between Eclipse instances running on different developer's workstations.

To fix the particular issue you're having, you could set up a separate startup script that passes your workspace as a command-line argument to Eclipse, bypassing the workspace selection dialog you're seeing.

Answer 2

Setup the shared eclipse such that it can not be modified by the users accessing it. This should (if I recall correctly) force eclipse into a "Shared User, Hands Off" mode and default to storing settings per user account.

Do not share Workspaces (or Projects) -- this will only break things horribly -- use a different strategy such as a proper revision control system.

Perhaps this documentation will be helpful. """The set up for this [shared] scenario requires making the install area read-only for regular users. When users start Eclipse, this causes the configuration area to automatically default to a directory under the user home dir. If this measure is not taken, all users will end up using the same location for their configuration area, which is not supported."""

I would try to run Eclipse locally as well as over the network. Using a shared network drive may make Eclipse more painful than it sometimes is. A development environment should work for the developer, even at the expense of a slightly more complicated setup.