vladimir piskarev's blog

Concurrently with the Handly releases announced today, we are also making available (under the Eclipse Public License v1.0) a step-by-step guide to getting started with Handly. It is hosted on GitHub. Despite being a work in progress, we do hope that even in its current form it will be useful for Handly adopters. Early feedback is welcome.

The Guide

In celebration of Eclipse Luna SR1, I’m very pleased to announce the simultaneous availability of two Handly releases.

Version 0.2

This is a major Handly release with the following themes:

Integration with Xtext 2.7.x — The most important goal of this release is to provide integration with Xtext 2.7.x. It will not support previous Xtext versions due to breaking changes introduced in Xtext 2.7 (see bug 442674 for a discussion).

Scalability — Handly 0.1 has been tried out on source files containing tens of thousands of lines of code. From those tests it seems that the JDT-inspired design would scale pretty well. Of course, there is always room for improvement, and this release is going to be even better in this regard.

API Quality — This release includes a number of API enhancements.

No major release can happen without some API breakage. Here is a summary of breaking changes in this release.

Version 0.1.1

Concurrently with 0.2, we are also shipping 0.1.1 release to bring important bug fixes to those adopters who still rely on the 0.1.x line. Please note that this release (as well as the 0.1) will not work with Xtext 2.7 or greater due to breaking changes introduced in Xtext 2.7.

We are making available these two Handly releases simultaneously to minimize disruption for adopters who use Handly integration with Xtext. While Handly 0.1.1 remains compatible with Xtext 2.5, it will not work with Xtext 2.7 or greater; the 0.2 release is integrated with Xtext 2.7.x but doesn’t support previous Xtext versions.

Enjoy and don’t forget to leave your feedback on the adopter forum.

Downloads

I am very pleased to announce that the Handly 0.1 release has been completed today as scheduled to coincide with the Eclipse Luna (it is not part of the simultaneous release though).

Downloads

Handly is a new technology project at Eclipse. It supplies basic building blocks that help implementors of language tooling create handle-based code models similar in design principles to the JDT Java Model. The uniform API makes it possible to develop common IDE components dealing with such models. Integration with Xtext is provided. For more information, visit the project’s website.

The first release of Handly at the Eclipse Foundation is primarily focused on taking a stable initial code contribution from 1C LLC and releasing it from Eclipse. This release lays the groundwork for further development and will be the basis for introducing the project to the open source community.

Looking beyond the initial release, the intent is to come up with a really nice design in this problem area through an open and transparent development process driven by community feedback. So if you are interested in this technology and have a feature in mind where you can leverage Handly, it would be in your best interest to engage as early as possible by playing around with this release and giving feedback. Please direct your comments and questions to the adopter forum.

Hard to believe it’s been a month since the creation review for the Eclipse Handly project was declared successful. And quite a busy month, I must say.

Just in case you’ve missed the proposal, Handly is a recently created Technology project at Eclipse. Inspired by JDT Java Model, it aims to provide a common foundation for language-oriented handle-based models. It also includes a layer of integration with Xtext. You can read more about the project proposal in my previous post.

It’s been our stated intention to make the initial contribution available to the community as soon as technically and legally possible. Today, I’m glad to announce that the initial contribution is now available (based on Parallel IP) in the project’s Git repository. You can clone the repository from git://git.eclipse.org/gitroot/handly/org.eclipse.handly.git. Please see the CONTRIBUTING guide in the repository’s root for general information on how to contribute to the project. Also, an architectural overview is available.

Early feedback would be most welcome, of course. It might be a great opportunity to participate and influence further development. We’re listening. Seriously :-)

It’s hard to find the words to convey what you feel when your first Eclipse project is being created before your very eyes. Thus, I shall restrain myself to simply expressing appreciation to all of you who have been interested in the proposal (or even took time to read my commentary on it and spread the word). Special thanks (in alphabetical order) to Doug, Marcel, Sven and Wayne; without your help and support, it would not be possible for the project to reach this phase within a relatively short time.

I hope that Handly will nicely fit the “Incubators Stream” of its parent Technology Project, as defined in the Project Charter (“incubation of small-scale, innovative platform and tools projects”). Being a small-scale project, it’s unlikely that its community is going to be particularly large. However, I do hope that its community will be friendly, diverse and vibrant. It’s an explicit goal for the project that we shall try to achieve.

We’re eager to make the initial contribution available to the community as soon as technically and legally possible. After that, please join in the development effort, participate in feature planning and design discussions, begin using this thing and provide valuable feedback, or simply ask questions. Remember, you are always welcome here. Thank you!