RCP Patterns and Anti-Patterns

Annas Maleh (Obtiva Corporation)

Rich Client Platform · Short Talk
Presentation File
Wednesday, 11:10, 10 minutes | Room 210

Annas Maleh

The material for 'RCP Patterns and Anti-Patterns' evolved out of the hard-won experience of an eXtreme Programming team that has successfully used RCP to complete an 18-month project, resulting in the progressive release of a custom CRM product to thousands of users.

This short talk is not a rehash of commonly known Gang of Four patterns but a new set of patterns that apply specifically to Eclipse RCP development. Some patterns relate to the structuring of plugins. Others relate to user interface paradigms and usability.

I will cover five patterns and five anti-patterns. For each, I will give a brief explanation, and then illustrate with a quick scenario (45 seconds per pattern.)

Examples of RCP Patterns covered:

Is The Job Done Yet?
Summaries Are For Viewing / Details Are For Editing
One Plugin Per Library

Examples of RCP Anti-Patterns covered:

Everything But The Kitchen Sink
Edit The Universe
The Obese Wizard

Questions are strongly encouraged at the end of the short talk.

Basic knowledge of Eclipse RCP development is required.

Annas "Andy" Maleh is a consultant at Obtiva, a firm that specializes in Eclipse RCP development, Ruby on Rails development and training, and helping teams transition to Agile methodologies. He is currently involved with an 18-month Eclipse RCP project to build a custom CRM application for an international corporation. He works in a team that follows eXtreme Programming practices, programs professionally in Java and Ruby, and participates in work relating to user-interface design enhancement. In EclipseWorld 2006, Mr. Maleh gave two presentations relating to Eclipse RCP development, titled "Looking Good! Polishing Eclipse Rich Client Applications" and "Practical Design Patterns for Rich Client Development." Mr. Maleh is a Sun Certified Java Programmer who holds a B.S. in computer science from McGill University.