Is CodePro dead?

[Vankog]

It seems there wasn't an update since September 2011.

Can I consider this project to be dead?

[Eric Clayberg]

No. It isn't dead, but it isn't active at the moment either. We would like to open source it when we have time.

[John McCabe]

I'm getting to that point myself. I've only been using it for a short while although I've known about it for much longer but I've asked two questions on this forum over the last few weeks that have had no response so it seems dead to me. I've got to the point where I think I've learnt enough not to need the test case generation, the code coverage is annoying because by default it ignores packages with "test" in their name (my application is test related and has "test" somewhere in many package names), the alternative is to do manual configuration/instrumentation which causes other annoyances and I can't see a way to share that configuration with other developers, I haven't had time to configure the audit tool so don't use that, and (having been very much a Java beginner when I started with it) I've gone down the EasyMock route CodePro supports as opposed to looking at e.g. Mockito that seems (from reviews) to be more highly recommended.

Overall it seems CodePro doesn't give me anything that I couldn't get from other, active projects or products (even if we had to pay for the product to get support).

The problem with "open source it when we get time" is that I suspect many others will have abandoned and nobody will care that it's been open source.

John


--
Sent from my Android phone with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.

[Antoni Mylka]

2012/06/21 John McCabe napisał/wrote:
> The problem with "open source it when we get time" is that I suspect
> many others will have abandoned and nobody will care that it's been open
> source.

I find it difficult to understand that Google bought a half of a
company, started giving its product away for free and doesn't develop it
further. Note that CodePro doesn't even come up on the google developers
products website: https://developers.google.com/products/, as if you
were ashamed.

findbugs does audits, DRY finds similar code, PMD does some of both and
finds some dead code, emma checks coverage, javancss does some metrics,
there are projects for automatic test generation and running like
autotest4j or infinitest. In most cases CodePro does all of that and
more. There is AFAIK no free equivalent for the dependency analysis
(which could use a couple of features more...) Structure 101 or LDRA
cost money.

When I first discovered it, I thought it would be a revolution, it would
bring commercial-grade tools within the reach of the masses and give the
lowly developer the means to develop high-quality software from day one.
The impact could have been similar to the one Eclipse and Netbeans had
back in the day, when a full-blown IDE became available for free. These
days, it could be a strong argument in the Java vs. dynamic languages
discussion (Yes, Java has disadvantages, but you won't get this sort of
analysis in Ruby). Sure you can do most of that with other tools, but
that's the same sort of argument as saying that you can do all your
development in VI.

I'm sure you'd find support in the Eclipse community, to push
WindowBuilder as THE GUI editor in Eclipse, on par with Netbeans
Matisse. VE is a travesty.

Yet it seems there isn't much drive inside Google to make it happen...

Antoni Mylka
antoni...@gmail.com

[Daniel Mönch]

I think the acquisition of CodePro while taking over Instantiations was just a side effect. The real reason for this was the gain of know how in code quality and the like from the staff.

[Antoni Mylka]

2012/06/21 Daniel Mönch napisał/wrote:
W dniu 2012-06-21 14:50, Daniel Mönch pisze:

> I think the acquisition of CodePro while taking over Instantiations was
> just a side effect. The real reason for this was the gain of know how in
> code quality and the like from the staff.

Probably,

Google had enough issues with Android allegedly infringing upon the
Oracle IP. Oracle won't welcome their forays into "normal" Java market.
Also, pushing Codepro to Eclipse could be understood as direct
competition with IBM Rational tools, which IBM won't like either. So I
guess that the "not enough time" explanation actually means "not enough
time to squeeze CodePro through the draconian Eclipse Foundation IP
processes while trying to appear as if we were no threat to Oracle and
IBM".

Codepro Profiler and WindowBuilder were supposed to be donated to ESF in
the first half of 2011. They still aren't. There must be good reasons
for that. There has been quite some investment into VE and TPTP over the
years and it's clear the existence of those projects wouldn't make any
sense with WindowBuilder, Profiler and Analytics in ESF. My conspiracy
theory is that TPTP and VE are there only to help Rational marketers
sell their tools to those who need something usable. I'm really curious
what must go on behind the scenes.

A pity nonetheless.

Antoni

[Eric Clayberg]

John,

I've asked two questions on this forum over the last few weeks that have had no response so it seems dead to me.

This is not a Google support forum for CodePro. It is a forum for CodePro users to discuss the tool and mutually help each other to the extent they can. If you did not receive a response, I would assume that simply means that no one reading the forum (myself included) knows the answers to your questions. The developers that worked on CodePro in the past are engaged 110% on other Eclipse-based projects at the moment and do not monitor this forum. I only look at it occasionally myself.

the code coverage is annoying because by default it ignores packages with "test" in their name

I suspect that it does this by default on purpose as that is what most users would need and expect. I am not aware of any way to change that default behavior.

the alternative is to do manual configuration/instrumentation which causes other annoyances and I can't see a way to share that configuration with other developers

Presumably, that configuration information is stored on disk somewhere, so I would think you would be able to copy it from one workspace/project to another.

I've gone down the EasyMock route CodePro supports as opposed to looking at e.g. Mockito that seems (from reviews) to be more highly recommended.

At the time that mocking support was addd to CodePro, EasyMock was what most of our customers wanted. I don't recall even having heard about Mockito at the time (probably didn't even exist yet).

Overall it seems CodePro doesn't give me anything that I couldn't get from other, active projects or products

I have not been watching the world of Java testing/audit tools for the past two years, so that may very well be the case.

 

The problem with "open source it when we get time" is that I suspect many others will have abandoned and nobody will care that it's been open source.

That may very well be the case. That does not alter the fact that the original CodePro team would still like to release the code so that it might be useful to someone else.

-Eric

 

[Eric Clayberg]

Antoni,

I find it difficult to understand that Google bought a half of a company, started giving its product away for free and doesn't develop it further.

Google bought Instantiations for two main reasons (neither directly associated with CodePro): 1) GWT Designer (shipped as part of the Google Plugin for Eclipse), and 2) Eclipse plugin development expertise (our team has been fully engaged on Eclipse-based projects ever since and is currently working on the IDE tooling for the Dart project).

Google chose to re-release all of the Instantiations products for free because it was the right thing to do. We also provided free support for the tool for a year to the community. CodePro is not (and never was) a focus for Google, so no resources are allocated to it. Any time spent on it (like me spending time to address your comments) is time I choose to spend because CodePro is still important to me. The other folks from the original CodePro team would likely do the same if they weren't consumed 110% on the projects they are working on.

 

Note that CodePro doesn't even come up on the google developers products website: https://developers.google.com/products/, as if you were ashamed.

That page has limited screen real-estate and is focused on what Google considers to be its priorities. CodePro is listed here...

https://developers.google.com/java-dev-tools/

When I first discovered it, I thought it would be a revolution, it would bring commercial-grade tools within the reach of the masses and give the lowly developer the means to develop high-quality software from day one.

That was one of the reasons we chose to give CodePro away for free two years ago rather than just killing it. We had hoped to open source it sooner, but the real world got in the way.

I'm sure you'd find support in the Eclipse community, to push WindowBuilder as THE GUI editor in Eclipse, on par with Netbeans Matisse. VE is a travesty.

I'm not sure where you've been, but WindowBuilder was donated by Google to Eclipse back in 2010 and was part of the Eclipse Indigo release last year and will be part of the Juno release later this month. 

http://eclipse.org/windowbuilder/

I and the other members of the original WindowBuilder team actively maintain the WindowBuilder project for Eclipse and for the benefit of Java developers everywhere. I have time to manage one major open source project, and I chose to focus on WindowBuilder. I wish I had more time to focus on CodePro as well, but that has not been the case.

Yet it seems there isn't much drive inside Google to make it happen...

Any drive within Google to do something with CodePro will come from individuals choosing to do something with there own time. 

-Eric

[Eric Clayberg]

Daniel,

I think the acquisition of CodePro while taking over Instantiations was just a side effect. The real reason for this was the gain of know how in code quality and the like from the staff.

That is a pretty fair assessment. GWT Designer (now part of the Google Plugin for Eclipse) is what drew Google's attention to Instantiations, and our Eclipse plugin development expertise has proven very useful on a number of different projects so far.

-Eric

[Antoni Mylka]

2012/06/21 Eric Clayberg napisał/wrote:
> I'm sure you'd find support in the Eclipse community, to push
> WindowBuilder as THE GUI editor in Eclipse, on par with Netbeans
> Matisse. VE is a travesty.
>
>
> I'm not sure where you've been, but WindowBuilder was donated by Google
> to Eclipse back in 2010 and was part of the Eclipse Indigo release last
> year and will be part of the Juno release later this month.

I rushed that mail a little. The profiler (aka Eclipse RAT) has been
"archived" last month. I don't do GUIs myself now, but have very bad
memories of VE. Just googled up the windowbuilder website
(eclipse.org/windowbuilder) and it says "This project was just
provisioned." and "We are in the process of getting the initial code
contributions into the ... IP review process". The proposal was
published in December 2010. That page doesn't give a good first
impression. I thought it was the same as with RAT.

I really appreciate your work and am grateful that you bother to look at
this mailing list from time to time. Thanks for the answers. Much has
cleared up.

Best regards,

Antoni Mylka
antoni...@gmail.com

[Eric Clayberg]

Antoni,

Google had enough issues with Android allegedly infringing upon the Oracle IP. Oracle won't welcome their forays into "normal" Java market. Also, pushing Codepro to Eclipse could be understood as direct competition with IBM Rational tools, which IBM won't like either. So I guess that the "not enough time" explanation actually means "not enough time to squeeze CodePro through the draconian Eclipse Foundation IP processes while trying to appear as if we were no threat to Oracle and IBM".

Nothing is preventing us from open sourcing CodePro other than the time needed from the developers to make it happen. Open sourcing a project like CodePro is very time consuming. It took us six months to fully open source WindowBuilder and about the same time to open source WindowTester (the 2nd former Instantiations product that was open sourced). If we do open source CodePro, it will likely be through Google Code or Eclipse Labs rather than Eclipse.org itself. Open sourcing through Eclipse.org implies a commitment to supply committers and continue maintaining the project (as we have done with WindowBuilder). If we open source CodePro, it will be for the purpose of letting others use the code and take the project forward. I don't foresee anyone of the former members of the CodePro team having the time to do that themselves.

 

Codepro Profiler and WindowBuilder were supposed to be donated to ESF in the first half of 2011. They still aren't.

Google donated both to Eclipse in 2010. We (Google) took responsibility on the WindowBuilder project (http://eclipse.org/windowbuilder/), and it successfully transitioned to open source and was part of the Indigo release train last year and soon to be part of Juno this year. The Profile project was lead by the folks who originally collaborated with Instantiations to build the Profiler (OnPositive). For reasons unknown to me, they never got their act together and never completed the Eclipse open source process. That project appears to be dead, so we may try to find another way to release that code - either through Google Code or EclipseLabs.

 

There must be good reasons for that. There has been quite some investment into VE and TPTP over the years

As far as I know, VE and TPTO are both dead. WindowBuilder is now the official Eclipse Java GUI builder. It will ship in both the Java Developers distro and the RCP Developers distro when Juno is released.

 

My conspiracy theory is that TPTP and VE are there only to help Rational marketers sell their tools to those who need something usable

Eclipse.org could care less how Rational markets its products. Even before Google acquired Instantiations, Rational was interested in WindowBuilder, so I doubt they care about the VE at all. 

I'm really curious what must go on behind the scenes.

It's a lot more mundane than you seem to think. There is no conspiracy and no grand strategy to suppress CodePro. There are just a bunch of very hard working developers who would like to do more with CodePro but simply do not have the time  ;-)

If someone out there wants to step up and say that they would like to seriously contribute to (and manage) the CodePro project, I would be willing to work with that person or persons to make it happen.

-Eric

[Eric Clayberg]

Antoni,

I rushed that mail a little. The profiler (aka Eclipse RAT) has been "archived" last month.

Sadly yes. I provide what little info I know about it in my last post. If anyone is interested in the Profiler code and wants to do something useful with it, let me know and I will see what I can do about it.

 

I don't do GUIs myself now, but have very bad memories of VE. Just googled up the windowbuilder website (eclipse.org/windowbuilder) and it says "This project was just provisioned." and "We are in the process of getting the initial code contributions into the ... IP review process". The proposal was published in December 2010. That page doesn't give a good first impression.

Clearly that page needs to be updated.

Fortunately, the product download page, bug tracker (Bugzilla) and the WB forum show that it has been quite active. >160 issues have been closed in the past year by the WB team, and the tool was fully updated for Eclipse 4.2. The forum has also had a huge amount of traffic with the WB team responding to most of the questions.

-Eric

[John McCabe]

Eric,

Sorry to top-post but I'm on my phone so it's easier this way.

I understand it's not a Google support forum, and I appreciate what efforts you, in particular, put into it. However, even as a user forum I would've hoped I wouldn't be the only one who's seen this issue and, at the very least, would have had someone get back with a "yeah, that's how it is" response. You're right that the settings I want to share are in the filesystem; I found them in a binary file somewhere in the bowels of my workspace, divorced from the location of my project and containing (as far as I can remember off-hand) absolute paths to my project. As the file's predominantly binary, I have no idea what the other content is, or how it would affect or constrain other developers so, in my opinion, it's not shareable. There are obviously simple ways this could be improved in CodePro but, as it's not being actively developed that's unlikely to happen and I'm actively.looking to replace the code coverage functionality with EclEmma.

I understand, of course, that tool availability at the time would have driven the EasyMock choice but my point really is that things change quickly in the Java world and one would expect an active tool project to try to offer support for newer, possibly better supporting tools. I'm of course not blaming you or the other developers for this, it is clearly a Google choice.

Ultimately I worry that any time you spend open-sourcing CodePro will be wasted because it's just been too long since it was actively developed and could be overtaken by other similar tools. Of course some of the technology may still be useful, but it makes me think of OpenWatcom where a lot of the most useful stuff had to be stripped out before open-sourcing!

John
--
Sent from my Android phone with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.

[it12lsp]

Am Donnerstag, 21. Juni 2012 16:29:29 UTC+2 schrieb Eric Clayberg:

If anyone is interested in the Profiler code and wants to do something useful with it, let me know and I will see what I can do about it.

 

Hello Eric,

 

yes, i´m interested on the Profiler code!

 

Thanks

Christian

[heiko.ei...@googlemail.com]

Hi Eric,

do you have any updates on getting the Profiler code. I'm also interested in it.

Best regards,

Heiko

Am Donnerstag, 21. Juni 2012 16:29:29 UTC+2 schrieb Eric Clayberg:

[Rupinder Singh]

CodePro Profiler used to have an Eclipse plugin that displayed the profiler snapshots. One of the cool features of it was an SWT TableEditor with the first column being horizontally scrobble. I have not been able to see that anywhere else. Does anybody know of a way to get access to its source code as I need that feature and have not been able to make it work.

[thomas...@boldint.com]

The last line did it. :-)

I know this is a very old post. But recently I have been looking for a simple yet powerful tool mostly because I have a general interesting in code quality - and believe it or don't - I ended up with CodePro.

If someone is still alive (so to speak) in the other end: https://pt.linkedin.com/in/bentzn

I'll do it.

/th 

[Leonel Gayard]

Hi,

I'm a few years late to the conversation, but I'll ask anyway.

Was it eventually open sourced? Where can I find it?

This article from InfoQ [1] mentions CodePro was donated to the Eclipse.org foundation to be renamed to "Runtime Analysis Tool" (RAT), but it seems it never grew past the proposal phase [2].

  [1]: https://www.infoq.com/news/2010/12/google-donates
  [2]: www.eclipse.org/proposals/tools.rat/