Some people say imitation is some form of flattery. In the software industry (especially in open-source), we see this a lot when people prune ideas and code from projects. Is this a bad thing? Not necessarily… it could be if we keep repeating the same mistakes. I came across a recent example of “imitation” in the Eclipse ecosystem as I was messing with JavaScript a bit (using the JSDT) and noticed something familiar:
I’ve seen those preferences before in the JDT!
I than did a bit more investigation… I looked into what extension points are provided by JSDT:
I think I’ve seen those before too!
I think the JDT team should be flattered, right ;)?
I’m not sure yet if “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,” but I know being stalked and copied can indeed be frightening:
