Build is too brittle because .target files contain timestamps of external dependencies which change

[vorburger]

See #127 and the fix for SpotBugs' com.github.spotbugs.plugin.eclipse.feature.group from 3.1.1.r201712011030-903b7a0 to "3.1.7.r201809130347-03f0119 I just had to do in #113 to get it to build again.

This project's build is just too brittle, because .target files contain timestamps of external dependencies which change over time.

I forgot how to improve this... 😄 This is that business about p2 deps via TP or letting Tycho do this for you, wasn't? If anyone knows how to change that, go for it and raise a PR...

[vorburger]

In https://github.com/lastnpe/eclipse-external-annotations-m2e-plugin/tree/master/eclipse-external-annotations-m2e-plugin.site we somehow avoided any .site with timestamp... because of https://github.com/lastnpe/eclipse-external-annotations-m2e-plugin/blob/master/pom.xml#L119 ?

[ArloL]

If I'm reading this correctly: The problem is not the timestamp. That's just a result of the eclipse build - the version has changed as well. The problem is that most eclipse plugins do not publish old versions of their plugins thus making continuous integration with deterministic versions a pain. And also having specific versions is actually a nice thing since your builds become more reproducible.

[vorburger]

This sort of has also come up in #149 again (where @victornoel and @erwint wonder why we have both .target and .setup here) and from what (little) I remember, this https://wiki.eclipse.org/Eclipse_Oomph_Authoring#Generating_PDE_Target_Definition_files_.28.2A.target.29_and_their_use_by_Tycho is how one use the .setup as the "source of truth", and Oomph generate .targets (and updates to it).

https://wiki.eclipse.org/Oomph_Targlets somehow allows an even tighter integration; but I dunno more.

[erwint]

Is this fixed with #169?

[vorburger]

Is this fixed with #169?

yup!