ILEditor projects feature annoucement (feature removed)
In the next release of ILEditor, we will be introducing the ability to create projects. A project is a completely new way of developing an ILE application for IBM i. All your source code is truly local and is only pushed to the IBM i during build time.
While you may be thinking 'Wow this sounds rather similar to iProjects in RDi', there is a difference - this is the way your source code is stored. When you create a project, you get two folders to store your source code. Those are Headers and Source. If you can't guess, Headers is where your headers / prototypes go. Source is where the source code for your RPG, C, CL, CMDs, DSPFs, SQL will live.
All those different languages will reside in one folder. We do not expect people to mix languages together (that could be two separate projects). Also, a project is not a place to store multiple programs. Like other environments, a project should be used to create either, a single large application (*PGM), a set of static libraries (multiple *MOD objects) or to create a dynamic library (*SRVPGM). Projects are a new development concept for IBM i, but is common in other environments.
It might be important to bring multiple projects together - for example, you might have a program that depends on an object built in a different project. We have added the ability to add dependants in the project settings. A project can depend on other local projects, of which will be built first. You can also define the static libraries (modules) which will be bound at compile time.
Whenever you build your project, all the source is uploaded to the IBM i IFS; in a directory you specify in the Connection Setup. The build system will create all objects from the IFS. For program types like CL, commands and display files, we copy them to a member in your chosen build library and create them from there.
Since all the source code is local, that can only mean one thing: git! Projects are a new way to develop ILE applications and we fully expect people to make use of git while developing. It may come in handy if you want to work on a new project with your team (or your open-source friends) with the ability to use git to manage your source so you can work in a distributed environment.