Ok, I know the killer argument for Eclipse RAP is that using this framework one can achieve up to like 95% code reuse (yep, 95%). These days I’m developing an Eclipse RAP based application, which I tried to convert to an Eclipse RCP based one. All in all it took me 7 minutes to do so. I mean, hello, 7 minutes … that’s like no time. Transforming a full blown web application into a rich client in a glimpse of a second is just awsome.
Alright, I already hear the naysayers: “That surely wasn’t a pretty sophisticated application”. And indeed it wasn’t, BUT the steps necessary to do this transformation were pretty straight forward:
- Checkout the application plugins from SCM
- Resolve unresolved dependencies (basically remove the RAP dependencies and add those of plain Eclipse)
- Change the SessionSingleton to a “normal” singleton
- Replace the EntryPoint with a default RCP application implementation
That’s basically it. All in all this was a pretty amazing experience which let’s me almost forgett the minor hassles I had with RAP (like text boxes doing what they want when being in a higher latency network – see #242379).