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Date: Tue, 5 Sep 2017 12:48:25 +0100 (BST)
From: tom@quarendon.net
Reply-To: tom@quarendon.net
To: user@karaf.apache.org
Message-ID: <1844284865.3196793.1504612110088@webmail.123-reg.co.uk>
Subject: Developing for karaf
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archived-at: Tue, 05 Sep 2017 11:48:43 -0000

I'm trying to get an idea of how people go about developing for karaf, from a practical point of view.

So karaf is maven focused. There are archetypes for creating command, general bundles and so on.
I can then use maven to generate some eclipse project files that allow me to write and compile my code within eclipse. I guess if I need extra dependencies, I have to edit my pom and hopefully eclipse picks this up (never really done serious maven development, so I don't know how this process really works).

When I want to try something out, I have to perform a maven build, start up a copy of karaf, install the bundle (or bundles) into it, then try out my new code? All from the command line?
What about debugging? You start karaf with the "debug" option and then remotely connect eclipse to the karaf instance so that you can then place breakpoints and step through the code if necessary? Does it just magically find all the source code?

Just trying to get a picture of what the expected workflow is and whether I'm missing anything. We're used to doing things in bndtools where you've got eclipse tooling for everything, so I'm just trying to do a mental reset really on what a "karaf/maven centric" development environment and process would look like. (I'm aware of the "Integrate Apache Karaf and Bnd toolchain" article, but we've had limited success with it beyond simple "hello world" examples. Maybe we just need more perseverance).

Thanks.