What is a "safe" way to share an Eclipse workspace between two computers? I've had problems using Dropbox and I've had problems using Github. I am looking for a best practice that will "just work".
Update
I read below and many other places that sharing a workspace doesn't work. But my collection includes 50 projects, are you saying that I need to create 50 github repos? There's no way to put them all in one repo to save the repetition?
Solution (imperfect, but still improving)
My collection of projects is in a github repo called projects/ which includes 50 subdirectories, each structured appropriately as they would be for an eclipse project.The /projects directory doesn't have meta-data or any other eclipse info (AFAIK)
Separately, in ~ I create a brand new Eclipse workspace. And then I "manually" import each one with Eclipse. I do this on each machine that needs to access those projects via Eclipse.
No, the workspace will contain machine-specific information and locations. Share the projects themselves, preferably through a source code management system like git. If anything in the project refers to something outside the workspace, you'll want it changed to refer to that resource in a portable way (e.g. pick the JRE using an Execution Environment instead by name).
Look at the thread at https://stackoverflow.com/a/37799711/10235188. They describe how to share a workspace and configurations between machines. Otherwise you'll always have problems with absolute paths.
I think it is quite normal to have more than one binary in a project. However, with Eclipse CDT I don't know how to set up the IDE to get things done.
I know I can create several projects - one per binary. And I know I can set the dependencies per project. However, I cannot regard them as one project in Eclipse. If I'd like to share the code with a version control system (like svn), each developer has to import the projects separately.
What I miss is something like the Solution (sln file) in Visual Studio. Should I create a single project and create the make files by myself?
I haven't tried it out yet, but there is this 'project set' which can be ex- and imported. Is this the solution? Can this be put into version control?
My goal it to put everything under version control, not only subprojects. I cannot imagine that CDT makes only sense for single-binary applications.
How can I work properly?
I am quite sure CDT doesn't support sub-projects, which leaves you pretty much with:
one workspace per "set of projects"
one project per binary (like you mention in your question)
project dependencies (like you mention in your question)
In term of version control, that means:
submodules (Git),
subrepos (Mercurial) or
external (SVN)
for each project needing a shared library project.
In short, that means putting under version control various components (set of files), with one referencing specific version of others (that list of specific versions of other components is called a "configuration", based on a component-based approach development)
How do you store third party libraries that you use in your project in your source control?
When would you store binaries in your source control?
When would you store the code in your source control?
Would you ever store both? In what situations would you do this?
(Btw, I'm using .NET but it doesn't really matter for this question)
How: a vendor branch is generally a good approach
When (thirdparties): for minimizing the number of referential involved: you could add those libraries into a separate external referential (like Maven), but that mean you need to access that extra referential for each of your environment (development - integration - homologation - preproduction - production)
When (code): for managing the complexity of the changes, when you know updates and fixes for current versions running into production will be needed while new development are in progress.
Why (store both): for deployment reason: you can manage a complete configuration (list of elements you need) in one referential and query it wherever and whenever you need for:
development (you query what you need to develop and execute your code, including thirdparties needed for compilation/execution)
tests (integration, homologation): you query the exacts tags you want to update your testing workspace with
production: you identify exactly what goes into production from one source: your SCM.
For test and production environments, that also mean your own product (the packaged result of what you are building) should also go into your SCM (only the official releases, not the intermediate ones used internally).
If other projects depend on your product, they will build their own project against your packaged version stored in the SCM, not against your source code they somehow recompiled.
Why this is important ?
Because in the end, what will run in production is that packaged version of your product, not your "source code re-compiled". Hence the importance to make all your test with the target final form of your product, clearly stored and tagged in your SCM.
Martin Lazar raises a legitimate point in his answer
Source control is called "source" control, because it is supposed to control sources.
While that may have been historically true, every current RCS have evolved toward SCM (Source Code Management), which does not just control sources, but also manages changes to documents, programs, and other information stored as computer files.
Binaries can then been stored (even stored with binary-delta)
Plus that allows some of those SCM to propose S"C"M feature (as in Source Configuration Management).
That SCM (Configuration) not only stores any kind of "set of files", but also their relationships (aka dependencies) between those sets, in order for you to query one set of file, and to "pull" every other deliveries on which that set depends on (to build or to deploy or to run)
How do you store third party libraries that you use in your project in your source control?
As binary or source or both. Depends on the library.
When would you store binaries in your source control?
A third party library for which we don't have the source or an internal library which we haven't made any changes to or the library is too huge to be built around.
When would you store the code in your source control?
Say, we use an internal library A but have made some bug fixed specific to product X. Then product X's depot will keep the source and build it.
Would you ever store both? In what situations would you do this?
Yes, all the latest binaries are stored in source control.
So the tree looks like this:
product
|-- src
|-- build
|-- lib
|- 3rdparty
|- internal
...
Assuming you are using .Net:
I create a "Libraries" folder in my project and source control that contains any third party assemblies.
My solution then references those assemblies and my build process pulls that folder down to our build server.
Any one pulling your code from source control should be able to compile it without having to hunt down references and assemblies.
Source control is called "source" control, because it is supposed to control sources..
In Java it's common pattern to use some version control system to store sources and other resources like configuration XML files or pictures, and than to use some dependency management tool like Apache Maven, which will store, download and manage your project's dependencies on 3rd party libraries. Then when you reinstall your OS, Maven can automatically download your dependecies from central repository (or your own private repositories as well) and store them in a local cache on your disk. You don't even have to know where the cache is :)
Maven can be also used with other languages and as far as I know plugins for .net and C/C++ are available, but I haven't used it with anything else than Java.
I don't put 3rd party source or binaries in SC. My rationale was that I would not have to update SC just to update the libraries. I am starting to regret this though. When I have had to recreate the project I find myself running around looking for the lib sources instead of just syncing to SC.
On a recent Java project I switched to using Maven - this was quite nice since it meant I didn't need to store any third party jars in a lib/ directory. At compile time maven would pull in the dependencies. One nice side affect is the jars have the version number in their filename.
My experience has been to create a "lib" folder and keep all 3rd party binaries in there. I will create a totally separate tree for the Source Code to these third parties if it is available.
Some places where this might be different is if you are using an open source vs. a retail 3rd party, with open source solutions I tend to just include the code in my projects and not check-in the binaries.
You don't need to store third party libraries in your source control repository. Those libraries (think of SDL, libcurl, etc.) should always be available on the web.
Just two raccomandations:
make sure to state clearly in your code which version of the library you should compile against
be sure that that specific version is always available on the web
Generally speaking, I would do roughly what has been prescribed by other users.
In the case of Subversion, and I admit I can't speak to the inclusion of the feature in the case of other systems, one can use an External to link in a repository maintained elsewhere. In a checkout/export, you'll get a full copy of the source including the updated code from that external repository all in one go.
This was particularly nice for me with PHP/JS development as there is no issue regarding storing binaries. I'd keep an external of the Zend Framework, Doctrine ORM, and jQuery all in a /lib/ folder of the project. Every update would give me a complete, updated copy of -all- the necessary files without any more work than adding that repository URL to an svn property.
If you are using git (which I recommend), and you have the source of the third party library, then storing the library in its own git repository and including it as a submodule is an excellent setup.
http://book.git-scm.com/5_submodules.html
http://git-scm.com/docs/git-submodule
If the source library is also using git then you can clone their library and push it to your own server so you'll never lose it.
Git submodules allow you to specify which revision of a library is required for a project, which is great for maintaining compatibility.
Conceptually you need to store at least the binaries (and the headers if you do C/C++)
That's usually the only way with third party libraries where you don't have the source.
If you have the source you can opt to store the source and build the third party libraries in your build process.
You should be able to install a fresh OS, get your sources from source control, built and run. So yes, you should put them in source control.
It depends on how big they are. When binaries or installers are too big, it can cause havoc for remote users. The upside of storing binaries and installers is that everything a developer needs to get up and running is in source control and the versions are correct. If you have a separate installation location, versions can get messed up. So, in general I like to store small or moderate binaries in source control, but larger ones I leave out.
Edit: Oh, and I call mine "BinRef" :)
When would you store binaries in your source control?
I store binaries in source control when I want they ability to quickly revert back to the old version of an application. There are number of reason I would do this, those include the following:
Application testing in an environment that exactly matches production is not always possible.
The previous programmer may not have used source control or may have used it incorrectly. So it can be difficult to be sure the source code you are changing is the version that matches what the user is working with.
On source code and compiled libraries (most likely standalone):
If I don't use the third party components (compiled libraries) or provided source to build inhouse software components, I simply take them off the shelf and install them as prescribed (which might include a compile, pl/sql code for example). I would not install them in a dependency management repo or any source control system for the simple reason that I don't want them incorporated accidently or otherwise in components I'm building and I don't want to track them in any software cycle. This is an asset (software asset) that should be tracked with other tools. If I'm not using them for software development, I don't and shouldn't see them in tools I use for software development.
If I depend on them for building my own software, I would store them all day long.
When in eclipse and you decide to share a project in a subversion repository using subclipse, can you make it create a folder structure for that project automagically somehow?
What I want is for every shared project to add this kind of structure:
/Client/Project/branches
/Client/Project/tags
/Client/Project/trunk/EclipseProject
Where Client is the name of the client, Project is the name of the actual project and EclipseProject is the name of the project as it exists in Eclipse. There may be more than one EclipseProject in this structure, in which case of course the directories doesn't have to be created.
Is this possible to do with a subclipse or am I better off writing a simple shell-script to do this? My first thought was doing a shell script since I don't mind using the terminal, but some of my collegues really don't like command line interfaces but dig Subclipse.
As far as I know, you cannot easily extend Subclipse to make it generate such a structure.
Actually, Subclipse had an issue with the GUI representation of deep structures, only fixed in the latest version 1.4.7 (05 December 2008), so there are not yet to provide any "template structure" ;) They try to represent existing folder trees right.
The only feature which does automatically create folders would be the "Create any intermediate folders that are missing" checkbox to Branch/Tag dialog, to make any missing and required parent directories as part of the transaction during a mkdir/move/copy commands.
That's about it.
I have a bit of code for a dll that is needed by two or more projects in eclipse. Currently each project has a copy of the code and builds the DLL separately. I want to separate the dll code into a separate eclipse project so there is a common location. But I want to avoid the situation where we have to build the dll in the one project, then copy the dll back to the other projects and check the dll to each respective project. This will create a dll for each project that isn't traceable to the exact code that it was built with.
Is there a way to somehow symbolically link the dlls to another eclipse project that is using CVS as the version control system so that it is possible to tell which version of the code was used to create the dll? Am I making this too complicated or missing something obvious?
I thought about working sets in the package manager for eclipse, but I have to investigate more on how to use them with CVS to avoid making it a nightmare for the next person who checks it out and can't figure out why their project won't compile.
Thanks.
What about creating a new folder in a separate project. In the advanced section of creating a new folder there is an option to link to another location on the file system.
Or you could also create a container project that makes use of a projectset.psf file. Have the projectset file link to the different projects in your repository. When you want to check out that project, check out the container instead and right click on the projectset file and select Import Project Set...
If you are working with one workspace, you end up with three projects, each mirrored in CVS: One is the dll, the others are the projects using the dll (configured as a project dependency of these projects upon the dll project).
With three projects I wouldn't aim for working sets - they are good for managing a lot of projects within one workspace, for three projects, I'd consider them overkill. I usually tend to aim for several workspaces instead of working sets.
Regarding the next person working with these projects: You need to keep some kind of documentation about how to setup your projects. You might say that your eclipse project files do just that (as they define a project dependency upon another project) but this is for the machine - humans tend to like other communication means.
If you are worried about changes to the dll being incompatible to one project (because the person applying these changes doesn't care about the other project), aim for a build server. This will build all projects and dependent projects whenever something under version control changes, run all tests, provide a build number and package it all ready for use. This way you can be sure that - whatever is in your deliverable - can be reproduced, because the buildserver is not able to make local (uncommitted) changes to the code. Also a buildserver will signal failure (either broken API or broken tests) at the moment of the last commit (well - a few minutes later) and place the burden of repairing the damage on the one causing the damage.