Eclipse PDE: What is a "target platform"?

When you work with Eclipse PDE (Plug-in development environment)开发者_开发知识库, there is the term "target platform." What does that mean exactly?

The target platform specifies the Eclipse configuration that you are developing your plugins for. This is defined by the set of available plugins and features. It defaults to mirroring the configuration of the Eclipse instance that you are running, but in most cases you will want to change it to something more specific.

For instance, you may be running Eclipse 3.6, but developing plugins for Eclipse 3.5, or you may be developing a plugin on top of WTP, but you don't need WTP functionality in your development eclipse instance.

Eclipse PDE development has parallels to embedded systems programming where you do development on a PC, but deploy your application to a remote device.

With Eclipse PDE, you develop in a plugin to an Eclipse instance. The plugin could be deployed to the instance you're working in, but it can also be configured to deploy to any other Eclipse instance. This is configured from Preferences -> Plug-in Development -> Target Platform.

See also http://rcpquickstart.wordpress.com/2008/04/21/why-create-a-custom-target-platform/