Integration of 3^rd Party Applications

In many cases, it can be beneficial to integrate 3^rd party products more tightly into the Eclipse platform as this can higher the productivity in many of the common use-cases. Many types of 3^rd products can be integrated into the Eclipse platform. The following list includes some of the possible forms of integration.

What can be done?

There are many possibilities when integrating a 3^rd party application into the Eclipse platform. Most parts of the basic Eclipse platform have been developed such that it is relatively easy to extend the functionality or interface to other similar systems. This is typically done via so-called extension points. This allows integrators such as The RCP Company to add further functionality without changing the original source code.

If all luck is out and the specific functionality is important enough, it is important to remember that the sources for all the major parts of the Eclipse platform are Open Source and thus free and most sensible changes to these will be accepted by the Eclipse development groups.

Some Examples

The following lists some of the more obvious changes that can be made to the Eclipse platform when integrating a 3^rd party application. Most of these changes can be made by only using the official extension points. The list is divided into the different types of 3^rd party system that should be integrated.

Issue management systems (bug management system, trouble ticketing system, etc)

When changes are checked into the source code management system, the issues that have been solved by the changes can be automatically updated with proper links to the changes files.

Source code management systems

When changes are checked into the source code management system, the comments may refer only to open issues. Or the change comment must refer to a test report of a properly executed unit test.

Configuration management systems

When a new software configuration is defined (e.g. when a set of files are tagged in CVS) the configuration name must be well-formed. Or the issue management system must be updated by the definition of the new configuration.

Build management systems

When the project is build, special build operations must be performed on special files.

Life-cycle management systems

Only software components with outstanding identified issues can be changed.

Many other types of time saving integrations can be added as well.