Here’s a tip for initializing your plugins or any other singleton-like repository only when needed.

Consider a code like this:

if (isConfigurable()) {
  Bundle bundleCopy = bundle;
  Preferences[] preferencesCopy = new Preferences[1];
  preferencesCopy[0] = new org.eclipse.core.internal.
			preferences.legacy.PreferenceForwarder(
			this, bundleCopy.getSymbolicName());
  return preferencesCopy;
}
return null;

Do you see what’s wrong there?

The problem is that if your #isConfigurable is always FALSE then your code still:

1. loads PreferencesForwarder class
2. initializes all PreferencesForwarder’s static variables
3. forces Preferences plugin to load

Always, if possible and makes sense, isolate your class loading into a simple Runnable inner class if there is some static init or plugin activation trigger involved!

Then the code would become:

if (isConfigurable()) {
  final Bundle bundleCopy = bundle;
  final Preferences[] preferencesCopy = new Preferences[1];
  Runnable innerCall = new Runnable() {
    public void run() {
      preferencesCopy[0] = new org.eclipse.core.internal.
			       preferences.legacy.PreferenceForwarder(
				 this, bundleCopy.getSymbolicName());
    }
  };
  innerCall.run();
}
return null;

When you think of it – this pattern is somewhat similar to the singleton pattern implementation – the one of the very few thread-safe and fast singleton patterns that is bugfree and truly lazy!

Quoting wonderful singleton impl from wikipedia:

public class Singleton {
   private Singleton() {}
   private static class SingletonHolder {
     private final static Singleton INSTANCE = new Singleton();
   }
   public static Singleton getInstance() {
     return SingletonHolder.INSTANCE;
   }
 }

(OK, to be fully honest, since java1.5 you can also trust volatile flags but – trust noone, use the old stuff:P)

For the reference, the PreferencesForwarder example was taken from the org.eclipse.core.runtime.Plugin#getPluginPreferences class and modified a bit.

UPDATE: This post is not fully correct! Never assume something to be true even if it comes from a trustworthy source like eclipse core runtime source. Please see the comments for explanation!