Why the constant clean & build with XPages?

HCL Notes/Domino 8.5 Forum (includes Notes Traveler)

Subject: Why the constant clean & build with XPages?

Feedback Type: Comment

Product Area: Domino Designer on Eclipse (DDE)

Technical Area: Functionality

Platform: Windows XP client

Release: 8.5.1

Reproducible: Intermittent

- It seems like development with Xpages randomly, but very frequently (say 80% of the time), requires a full clean and build. Since I'm learning Xpages, and I have a lot of controls with complex interaction of facets with multiple layers of controls, I make a small change, I save it, then I look at it in the browser. Make another small change and look at it in the browser. It's slower than molasses in January, but given the absolute dearth of usable documentation on Xpages there's little recourse.

- With increasing frequency the small changes I make fail to appear in the browser. The browser is configured to always reload the page from the server, because I use it for development all the time. When the small changes fail to appear, I can do a full clean and build in DDE, and then the small change appears, every single time.

- A full clean and build takes a very long time compared to a simple save operation, so today in particular I've literally spent more time waiting for builds than actually coding anything. For instance, right now I'm trying to figure out why my page gets a stack trace on edit. No message, nothing of use, just a "uh oh" indication and a stack trace. It's a nightmare. I commented out all my changes, added deleted elements back so it loads again, The only way I can think of to tell what's happening is to comment out one restored element, uncomment the change for that one element, save it, and load it to see if it crashes. When I hit the stack trace I'll know I've found the real problem. Currently this dog and pony show is to replace about two dozen input text with combo box.

- Each and every time I make the slightest change to this control I must do a full clean & build, or the combo box never appears, the input text still does. There are no errors on the build, nothing what-so-ever to indicate anything is amiss. It simply refuses to update whatever automagic makes the Xpage work, so it continues to work using stale code.

- Document-based combo boxes are like pulling eye teeth to start with. This is just salt in the wound.

- I've done development in Eclipse for years and years, and it does every occasionally need a full rebuild. Maybe once per week during intensive development. I've never known why, but it doesn't bother me if it's once a week. It bothers me a lot when it essentially has to be done every single build, because significantly more often than not it doesn't work without it. It's just one more in the near-infinite list of little issues with DDE and Xpages, which collectively amount to a serious mountain of frustration.

Feedback number DGIE7Y537P created by ~Holly Zekhipisonnivu on 11/25/2009

Status: Open
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