27.10. Summary

The strength of Eclipse lies in its use of modularity via its robust plug-in model. This, in turn, maps directly onto the OSGi framework specification and its bundle model. Plug-ins bring advantages of scale, composition, serviceability, and flexibility. The costs of this power are the rigor and attention to detail required when defining plug-ins—poorly defined plug-ins are hard to compose and reuse in the same way as poorly defined objects.

This chapter exposes the essential details of the OSGi component model and the Eclipse implementation of the OSGi specification. We touched on some of the framework’s configuration options and provided a number of guidelines for building your plug-ins.