dinsdag 22 februari 2011

The sorry state of Mylyn connectors for Google Code/EclipseLabs

The Eclipse Wiki says there are two connectors to use Mylyn with GoogleCode and/or Eclipse Labs. Unfortunately both are in alpha state and have seen little action lately. That is the reason for the deliberately provocative title of this post.

Googlecode Mylyn Connector

Googlecode Mylyn Connector is licensed under Eclipse Public License 1.0.
This is the more extensive project, but is has a few open issues that depend on issues with GoogleCode's API itself. So the GoogleCode API must first expose more functionality for this connector to move past alpha.
Most notable are:

Project Hosting connector for Mylyn

Project Hosting connector for Mylyn is licensed under Apache License 2.0.
... One of the main goals of the project is to have a similar look-and-feel for the user interface to the one already provided on Google Code.
The functionality is limited to read-only interaction at this time, but ability to enter new issues is under development.
The project has two members. Reading the project site it seems that it is read only access and focus on HTML layout in the editor. Not a lot appears to be happening here so I think this project is abandoned.

What can be done about this?

Mylyn is the biggest develper productivity enhancer in recent years. Many commercial SCM vendors provide connectors made by or helped by Tasktop.
Google depends on and contributes to Eclipse in a big way (WindowBuilder, CodePro Analytix, AppEngine).

I strongly feel that OSS community deserves a good Mylyn connector for the very accessible open source repository where SCM, Issue tracking and documentation all come together that is provide by Google Code/EclipseLabs! So this should be taken to the next step.
  • So I'm going to volunteer at the Googlecode Mylyn Connector to help resolve some of the Mylyn specific issues using everything I learned contributing to Mylyn itself and creating the Industrial Mylyn Connector for connecting to SQL databases.

  • But I'm also calling on readers of of this blog and Planet Eclipse to add comments and votes/stars to the issues in the GoogleCode Support pages listed above to raise the profile.
So now I'm going to check out the code and start looking at some issues. I will keep you posted...