In Javaranch we have forums for different technologies which are based on Java. I suggest that we should have one for plug-in based development using Eclipse RCP. considering the popularity it has acheieved in the recent past. Yes we do have a separate forum for SWT and JFaces but developing RCP Plug-in is slightly different
We generally add a new forum if there is a significant number of questions dealing with that topic, not if we anticipate that there will one day be lots of questions.
Searching for "RCP", I see about 30 posts in the last 6 months, spread out over time (i.e., not more them lately). I don't think that level of interest is sufficient for a new forum. Of course, if interest does pick up, adding a new forum is no big deal.
Ernest Friedman-Hill
,
author and iconoclast
staff
Eclipse plugin development is also discussed in the "IDEs" forum. It's funny you mention "the recent past" because Eclipse plugin development was a fairly hot topic a couple of years ago, but is rarely mentioned now.
I think there are two cases where we would consider creating a forum:
1) an existing forum is getting a lot of traffic on a subtopic and we should divide it.
2) there is a new-ish technology and somebody is of the opinion "if we build it, they will come." combined with at least one person that has a plan on getting stuff started. This would be not only posting three to six posts a day to get discussion going, but actively recruiting folks for a few weeks to get it going. Sometimes we can arrange some authors (complete with book promos) or big wigs to hang out for a while. The thing is, it can be a lot of work to get a forum going and folks generally just don't understand how much work it would be. So we create the forum, it sorta does nothing, and then it turns out to be a waste of space.
I dunno - this question gets asked enough, maybe it could be FAQ fodder?