Java Reference
In-Depth Information
Neither Osmorc nor NetBeans provides OSG i support that's as rich as that of bndtools
and Eclipse PDE . If you're using NetBeans as your development environment, you may
have to make some compromises in terms of how you structure your OSG i bundles, or
work against the IDE to some extent. Osmorc is more flexible and more closely aligned
with OSG i best practices, but you may find that it's adding only limited value compared
to using IntelliJ IDEA in its normal mode alongside a bnd-based Maven build.
9.2.3
Do you need OSGi support in your IDE?
If you're developing OSG i bundles using a code-first style, and you're not writing your
own bnd files, how much OSG i support any IDE —even Eclipse—can give you is lim-
ited. Luckily, this isn't such disappointing news as you might initially think. One of the
defining characteristics of the code-first style of OSG i development is that the code
development itself doesn't necessarily involve much OSG i. It arguably doesn't involve
any OSG i at all—the OSG i-ness gets added later, at build time. This means you can
choose to develop with whatever development tools you're most comfortable with.
If you're using Maven and the bundle plug-in, a popular choice is to use the Maven
Eclipse plug-in to align your IDE and your Maven build. The Eclipse plug-in creates
Eclipse projects for each of your Maven modules and ensures Eclipse knows where to
find all the source files and resources. If you'd like more complete integration, you
can use Eclipse's m2eclipse (m2e). The m2eclipse plug-in hooks the Eclipse compile
process into the Maven build process, so that Maven builds get used by Eclipse to com-
pile your code. This is the approach taken by the Apache Aries project, for example.
Maven also integrates nicely with other IDE s, including some we've discussed, like Net-
Beans and IntelliJ IDEA , and some we haven't, like Embarcadero's JBuilder.
9.3
Tools for the enterprise OSGi extensions
Although they offer varying levels of support for core OSG i, none of the development
tools we've discussed so far offer much support for the enterprise OSG i programming
model. Bndtools and PDE do have handy built-in support for Declarative Services, but
that's about the extent of enterprise OSG i support in what we've seen so far. But there
are several free tools built on top of Eclipse PDE that allow it to support development
of enterprise OSG i applications. Although this support isn't essential to code enter-
prise OSG i applications, you may find it useful.
9.3.1
IBM Rational Development Tools for OSGi Applications
The more mature of these tools, IBM Rational Development Tools for OSG i Applica-
tions, is a set of free tools that support Apache Aries development. The Rational tools
know about Blueprint, WAB s, JPA persistence bundles, and also EBA applications. They
also offer support for WebSphere Application Server concepts like composite bundles.
To install the tools, you'll need the Java EE version of Eclipse, version 3.6 or higher.
Bring up the Eclipse Marketplace from the Help menu and search for OSG i. The
Rational tools should be the first option.
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