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Mylyn 3.0 Endgame

Published By Mik Kersten

There’s a light at the end of the 3.0 tunnel that Mylyn committers have been in—the light is a fast approaching train called Ganymede. Here’s a status update for both early adopters and integrators. Since last June’s Mylyn 2.0 and Europa release we’ve had three releases, and the ecosystem around Mylyn has evolved from a handful of connectors to nearly two dozen. Since the Mylyn 2.3 release we have been focused on incorporating integrators’ feedback in order to produce the revised Mylyn 3.0 APIs. Below is a summery of the Mylyn 3.0 endgame for interested early adopters and API integrators.

Early Adopters

Once Ganymede RC1 is released next week you can start experimenting with Mylyn 3.0. However, note that your connector may not be ported, and as such we do not recommend updating your Eclipse until you know that the connector you are using has been ported. Once Mylyn 3.0 RC3 is released on June 4th we would like as many early adopters to move to it as possible, and will post the list of available connectors at that time.

Integrators

Mylyn 3.0 will support both Eclipse 3.3 and 3.4, and as such will replace Mylyn 2.x. The Mylyn 3.0 APIs are much simpler, encapsulate considerably more common behavior in the framework and expose much less internals (in part thanks to the great API tools in Eclipse 3.4). This means that extensions will be more robust and easier to implement and maintain. We will be working on the Javadocs and Porting Guide next week, so for projects outside of Eclipse.org, RC2 or RC3 is a good time to start porting. The release schedule has had no significant changes since July. We will continue incorporating integrator feedback, and the best place to track progress and make general comments is bug 227660.

Tasks API

The JIRA connector has been ported, and Bugzilla will be ported by next week. Due to the extent of the changes with org.eclipse.mylyn.tasks.core, and the benefit of having connectors ported as soon as possible, we will be offering additional porting assistance. If you’re interested in closer assistance, let us know via bug 227660.

Context API

The changes in the Context API are straightforward, and you may be able to do most of the bridge porting by organizing imports, then looking to the Java bridge, and referring to the porting guide if needed. We will update the porting guide with the answer to any question that comes up, so please don’t hesitate to ask as it will help others. The bulk of the changes here had to do with simplifying the API and hiding internals.

Team API The changes are minor and porting should be straightforward. The bulk of the changes had to do with ensuring that Team extensions could be redistributed without requiring Team/CVS or the Eclipse SDK. Happy hacking!

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Written by Mik Kersten

Dr. Mik Kersten started his career as a Research Scientist at Xerox PARC where he created the first aspect-oriented development environment. He then pioneered the integration of development tools with Agile and DevOps as part of his Computer Science PhD at the University of British Columbia. Founding Tasktop out of that research, Mik has written over one million lines of open source code that are still in use today, and he has brought seven successful open-source and commercial products to market. Mik’s experiences working with some of the largest digital transformations in the world has led him to identify the critical disconnect between business leaders and technologists. Since then, Mik has been working on creating new tools and a new framework - the Flow Framework™ - for connecting software value stream networks and enabling the shift from project to product. Mik lives with his family in Vancouver, Canada, and travels globally, sharing his vision for transforming how software is built, and is the author of Project To Product, a book that helps IT organizations survive and thrive in the Age of Software.