We are on OE 11.5 and do a certain amount of OO in ABL. Very recently (about a year ago) we finally started noticing some enhancements being made in PDSOE to support the ability to "find references". This is invaluable when it comes to OO code (classes, properties, methods, etc). Any good IDE for an OO language will have this. Otherwise OO code can become unmaintainable (ie. like legacy ABL without any xrefs).
However, a number of things are frustrating about the "find references" feature, the most important one being that it is extremely hard to believe the results. They have extensive accuracy issues. I am trying to search for a list of "gotchas" *(accuracy-related bugs) but haven't found a good list yet. Is anyone keeping a list? A list would help us know when to beware of the results (and double-check them with text-based file searching, the "old fashioned" way).
Here is a sample google search:
https://www.google.com/search?q=find+references+site%3Aknowledgebase.progress.com
Note that near the top of the google results we see one of the biggest problems with "find references" - it takes forever to generate the results (aka. "indexing"). The generation of results is done on a background thread of PDSOE, and there is no progress/status output view for it - so you don't really know when its running, or when it's complete.
On top of that I've noticed a number of other issues, even after the "indexing" is supposedly complete. PRIVATE methods are never found, not even locally within the same class, constructors aren't found in some cases (depending on the NEW A.B.Xyz() syntax where the classes are instantiated), and so on. It is really scary to rely on this new feature when making changes to widely-used OO classes.
Please let me know if it is reasonable to ask for the list of "gotchas" (aka. "known issues") with the new feature of PDSOE. I have to believe there is an internal list that is kept by Progress, which is quite a bit more detailed than what we can find in the KB. As things stand now, I would almost never trust the results from this feature without double-checking.
Perhaps we're using OO in ABL a bit more than most? I guess I'll go ahead and plan on reporting my bugs one-by-one thru my support account (at least the ones I've discovered myself, "the hard way"). Thank goodness for OpenEdge product support.
It seems that Progress would have much to gain by disclosing more information about "find references". Otherwise the involvement of product support is certain to be longer and more resource-intensive, and won't provide any benefit to the community as a whole.
It would seem to me that the disclosing of more information (surrounding the "find references" feature) would also be helpful to others who'd like to start using OO ABL and who'd benefit from having more familiarity with the available tooling in Eclipse. Nowadays if a new developer was to approach ABL and start using it for the first time, they might naturally investigate the OO side first. I think that side of things would benefit from getting more attention/investment, and would certainly benefit from more publicly available information. Unfortunately googl'ing / bing'ing on OO-ABL topics is unproductive. Whenever I encounter an issue in this area, I find there is little out there to be found on the subject.
My first support case will be to find out *WHEN* a developer may start using the "find references". I know that there is a delay between the time we compile to r-code and the time we can start searching for references in the IDE, but it is unclear how long to wait. The progress/status output view (in Eclipse) provides no clues either. I guess for now I just need to use my taskmgr and wait for the java.exe cpu to slow down... or something along these lines... wish there was anyone else out there trying to use this stuff too... you would almost think we were on the bleeding edge of software development here... </complaining>
Here is an updated search on the KB:
https://www.google.com/search?q=find+references+site%3Aknowledgebase.progress.com
There are a few more KB articles now about the "find references" feature for OO-ABL. Here was one in particular that kept biting me:
knowledgebase.progress.com/.../Find-References-fails-when-r-code-exists
In order for "find references" to work more reliably, you need to delete your r-code.