Mylyn 2.1: Refactoring the Eclipse User Interface to increase productivity

The Europa JEE edition with Subclipse installed with Mylin integration would stop responding for several seconds at a time. This would happen after generating a bunch of Java files in my project via Ant.

Here's the bug I filed against it and another discussion about it:

subclipse.tigris.org/servlets/ReadMsg?listName=...

www.eclipsezone.com/forums/thread.jspa?messageI...


Alex Blewit and Mark Phipard helped me look into it, but we never determined exactly what the problem was.

In order to solve this issue I had to switch to Eclipse Classic 3.3 which doesn't have the Mylin plugins installed. Europa JEE doesn't allow you to remove Mylin, which is a huge mistake.

I've never liked it when someone takes the attitude "We've created a new, better way to do your work and everyone should adopt our way" which is what I sense with Mylin. The fact that it cannot be removed from Europa JEE shows that the Eclipse team has bought into this too.

The Eclipse and Mylin teams should make the Mylin plugin removeable. It causes problems, and even if it didn't not everyone wants to drink that Kool Aid.

Dean, I'm very sorry to hear that this was your experience, and I completely agree with you that whenever someone adds a new way of working it should be optional. For this reason we have made sure that Mylyn stays out of your way completely if you don't use it, that each feature can be used independently, and that parts or all of it can be easily disabled or uninstalled. To uninstall use Help (menu) -> Software Updates -> Manage Configuration and disable/uninstall the plug-ins. The problem that you were most likely running into with uninstalling is that you have to disable the Subclipse Mylyn integration before you disable the rest of Mylyn. I will add clarifications on this to the corresponding FAQ entry: wiki.eclipse.org/index.php/Mylyn_FAQ#Uninstall_...

Since Mylyn is a framework that multiple extensions, like Subclipse, build on, we try to do our best to make the framework as safe as possible to malfunctions in the extensions, but we cannot control them. I will follow up further on this with the Subclipse folks and suggest something else for you to try on the corresponding bug (bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=200220). In the meantime, if you could try running the standard Europe JEE and use Sublcipse without installing the additional Subclipse Mylyn feature, we would value your feedback on whether that addresses the problem.

Dean, it if very unfortunate that you are bringing your issues on this side instead of the issue trackers for Mylyn and Subclipse. Sorry if it wasn't clear from the discussions you've referred to, but the troublesome feature comes from one feature in Subclipse integration for Mylyn that I implemented some time ago. It is triggered by Mylyn's own hyperlink detector. We may also introduce an option to disable that feature in Subclipse integration for Mylyn.

As Mik already mentioned, you can, of course, disable all Mylyn plugins, or you can also disable/uninstall optional Subclipse integration for Mylyn feature (leaving just the Subclipse core). Another option is disable Mylyn's hyperlink detector wich you can do at Window / Preferences / General / Editors / Text Editors / Hyperlinking.

As you can see there are several options available to disable all or selected features or plugins and it is up to you to decide what exactly you want to use.

I had a similar issue with Europa J2EE on a clean install. If I did not have the option to download a MyLyn-free Classic version I would be using NetBeans right now.

I had similar issues with Europa J2EE (many freezes, crashes,...) and everytime i check the log, issues are caused by Mylyn.
In my point of view, Europa 3.3 is not an usable IDE for Java development, so i switched back to WTP 3.2

Eugene,

I filed a bug report with the subclipse project after following their procedures for filing bug reports. The issue seemed to just fall off of the radar screen, though.

I brought it up here both to alert others and to see if anybody else had encountered it, since during the discussion with Mark and Alex they didn't have anyone else confirm it. As you can see form the replies there are others who are having problems too.

I'll do a fresh install of Europa JEE with Subclipse but leaving out the Mylin integration and see what happens. I should be able to report back to you early next week.

Richard, Chris: we have had dozens of bug reports filed since Europa and Mylyn 2.0 were released, fixed all the key ones for Mylyn 2.1, but have not had *any* bug reports about any failures or crashes that are attributed to Mylyn (almost all were enhancement requests). There has been some confusion because in some scenarios Mylyn puts innocuous warning messages into Eclipse's log, but those do not cause any bad behavior (see bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=188524). If you see any bugs that you attribute to Mylyn please report them so that we can figure out where they are coming from. From our point of view we see countless users praising the tool, and the occasional ones with a severe problem, almost always due to an Eclipse or workspace misconfiguration. If you file a bug we will help you get to the bottom of that problem.

I understand that when a new technology is added to an IDE it is easy to blame that technology for anything that goes wrong. But since your comments sound so ominous, I would appreciate that you follow up either here or in one of our public forums so that we can determine whether there are Mylyn-related problems underlying your problematic experiences. I'd had to have such comments needlessly scare users away from using Mylyn, when we can daily comments on how much it is increasing the productivity of those who adopt it. And again, if you're not using Mylyn, and it doesn't stay completely out of your way, please feel free to file a bug and call it a blocker, since being optional has always been our key design goal.

www.eclipse.org/mylyn/community/

Dean, we discussed further on the bug I and Subclipse can do little to prevent this scenario, due to the number of resources out of synch in your workspace. Mylyn will be updated to timeout such extensions in the scenario where are slow to return. Mark Phippard, Subclipse lead, lists the workarounds at: bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=200220#c10 If you could try either ensuring that your Eclipse workspace is refreshed after running the Ant script (generally a good practice, setting is under External Tools -> Refresh) or not install the additional Subclipse Mylyn Change Set feature and report back that would be great, either here or on bug.

Dean, I am sorry if I read it wrong, but your message didn't sound as a question to the community, but rather as a statement that Mylyn don't work and its innovative ideas should be considered harmful.

It does happen sometimes that some issues fall off the radar, but only because other issues may take priority due to lack of the resources or because lack of feedback on the bug reports. Please don't hesitate to ping on the bug reports if you feel that your issues been forgotten or require additional attention.