In the hybris wiki trails, there is mention of core data vs. essential data vs. sample data. What is the difference between these three types of data?
Ordinarily, I would assume that sample data is illustrative gobbledygook data created to populate the example apparel and electronics storefronts. However, the wiki trails suggest that core data is for non-store specific data and the sample data is for store specific data.
On the same page, the wiki states that core data contains cockpit and catalog definitions, email templates, CMS layout, and site definitions (countries and user groups impex are included in this as well). This seems rather store specific to me. Does anyone have an explanation for this?
Yes, I have an explanation. Actually a lot of this is down to arbitrary decisions I made on separating data between acceleratorcore and acceleratorsampledata extensions as part of the Accelerator in 4.5 (later these had y- prefix added).
Essential and Project Data are two sets of data that are used within hybris' init/update process. These steps are controlled for each extension via particular Annotations on classes and methods.
Core vs Sample data is more about if I thought the impex file, or lines, were specific to the sample store or were more general. You will notice your CoreSystemSetup has both essential and projectdata steps.
Lots of work has happened in various continents since then, so, like much of hybris now, its a bit of a mess.
There are a few fun bugs related to hybris making certain things part of essentialdata. But these are in the platform not something I can fix without complaining to various people etc.
To confuse matters further, there is the yacceleratorinitialdata extension. This extension was a way I hoped to make projects easier, by giving some impex skeletons for new sites and stores. This would be generated for you during modulegen. It has rotted heavily though since release, now very out of date.