The Eclipse Web Tools Platform Project will initially focus on infrastructure for tools used to build applications for standards-based Web and Java runtime environments. (See diagram for illustration.) Outside the project's scope, at least at first, will be support for vendor-specific application architectures, such as ASP.Net and ColdFusion, or for extensions not backed by the JCP, such as Apache Struts. This can be re-evaluated later according to user needs and contributor availability and may lead to the creation of a new subproject.
The project will be further limited to providing infrastructure for tooling proper, in contrast to infrastructure related to the application run-time. We will typically use a simple litmus test to set the boundary between tooling and run-time. Application artifacts, once developed, have no execution dependencies on the relevant tooling framework, while the converse would be true for run-time frameworks. In keeping with our objective of maximizing vendor-neutrality, where multiple frameworks exist in the market for a given functional domain, we will attempt to develop tooling based on a common abstraction (or superset) to the extent feasible.
The ultimate objective of the project is to support tooling that allows developers to produce applications providing a high degree of extensibility and reuse with increasing development efficiency. The tooling foundation the project will deliver will support these values by enforcing appropriate separations of concern in application architecture, raising the level of technical abstraction in application development and enabling repeatability in development processes. These values, however, will be achieved incrementally over time. Early deliverables will focus on an extensible foundation supporting the most widely used Web and Java standards and technologies.
In addition, we expect the Web Tools Platform Project to produce functional requirements that are more appropriately satisfied through the Eclipse Project or other Eclipse foundational subprojects. Areas in which we might expect to see these elaborated requirements would be in working with components, or supporting complex project layouts. In such case, the Web Tools Platform Project PMC will coordinate the corresponding Project PMCs the design and implementation of the corresponding contribution.
