There are twelve packages currently listed on the downloads page, not counting the promoted ones. Are so many packages actually a benefit to users? We try to define packages based on developer profiles, but real developers rarely fit a profile. One of the most common complaints that I have seen on forums are related to difficulties in getting an Eclipse installation that has all the pieces that the developer requires. The ironic thing is that we go through a lot of trouble to define a common repository with components that are known to work with each other, but then fragment the result into a dozen different packages.
Would user experience be better if there was only one Eclipse package on the main download site that had pretty much everything that's in the aggregated repository? Some of the reasons for not doing that. 1. The package would be too large. With modern download speeds, I suspect most users would rather wait a few minutes longer for Eclipse to download than spend time later trying to figure out how to install the missing pieces. The disk space difference is also inconsequential these days. 2. The users prefer to not include pieces in their installation that they don't use. I can see that being the case for some advanced Eclipse users, but I don't believe this holds true across the user base. I suspect that most users would rather spend time on their development project than tuning their Eclipse installation. 3. Too many plugins in one installation leads to poor user experience. If there are problems like that, we should be identifying and fixing them. Thoughts? - Konstantin
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