Eclipse Extensions and Declarative Services

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+2 Q:

Eclipse Extensions and Declarative Services

I'm a little confused on the approach to extensions/services in the Eclipse architecture. There are two options available to a developer:

The use of Eclipse plugin extensions - http://www.eclipse.org/articles/Article-Plug-in-architecture/plugin_architecture.html
The use of declarative services - http://www.eclipse.org/equinox/bundles/

When you would use one over the other and what are the advantages and the disadvantages of each approach? Also going forward which is the preferred approach?

+1 A:

There's a pretty good comparison (from 2007, I think) on EclipseZone: A Comparison of Eclipse Extensions and OSGi Services.

I would follow the conventions of your target platform. So, if you're writing a plugin for Eclipse 3.4, say, create an Eclipse 3.4 plugin (which will use a MANIFEST.MF for dependencies and a plugin.xml for extensions/extension points - the article you link to is for Eclipse 2.x). You can examine the contents of the plugins directory to confirm this.

McDowell 2009-03-27 11:46:30

That's an interesting article on both approaches, some good advantages and disadvantages on each.

Jon 2009-03-30 07:37:50

+1 A:

VonC 2009-03-27 12:43:34

Thanks. I understand how to create services uses DS, but I was looking for the advantages/disadvantages of each and any hints the Eclipse vision and preferred approach (if any) moving forward.

Jon 2009-03-30 07:33:21

@Jon: I understand. I just wanted to point out one disadvantage you will find in both approaches (explicit dependency) unless you are using the latest DS specification.

VonC 2009-03-30 07:39:10

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