Saturday, June 2, 2012

Install new software eclipse GAE loop

Sometimes I think it is more difficult setting up your development environment than writing a complex program.  I refer today to setting up Google App Engine on the Eclipse Platform.  I took me a whole week to get it set up and working.  There were a few times where I wanted to smash my laptop or kick someone in the face, but I tried again and again.

Why did it not work? I don't know but what happened was that I downloaded the latest version of Eclipse, went to help -> install new software, added the repository
(http://dl.google.com/eclipse/plugin/3.7)

and started the installation.  All was fine until it came to about 49% (in later cases I tried to install the core files and it stuck on 27%) and then it downloads the same file over and over again, from multiple mirror sites.  Not only did this waste a lot of money, it never worked.

In the end I downloaded the latest Eclipse Java EE version and downloaded the google repository so that I could install GAE from my local machine.  I also had to disable "Contact all update sites during install to find required software"  before installation.  This seemed to have done the trick and now I can start writing again.  A massive sigh of relief.

Hopefully if anyone happen to have the same problem as I did they would stumble upon this post and not frustratingly bash their heads against the wall until they pass out.