I honestly have to say that the Context object in and of itself is a flawed implementation. Don't get me wrong, the idea behind it is wonderful. The problem with the whole Context concept is that the Context is very dependent on its environment.
Concidering all the hubbub surrounding this one innocent looking object, no-one can come to agreement on its best use. In order to better understand how and when to use a Context we need to look at other systems that have their own Context object. Those include Servlets, Mailets, and Phoenix Context (AKA BlockContext). Truth be told, we don't have a unified concept beyond we get Objects by name out of it. The Phoenix variation exposes what IMNSHO are dangerous services that no component should ever have access to. However it shares a few things in common with Servlets, but not Mailets. Same thing with the other two. There really is only one thing that might be the same across all three--but that is summed up in the current Context interface. Truth be told, the best we can do with Avalon's context is define standards for what information gets bound in there. That will be the Avalon context. There are other application specific components that follow a different model from Avalon--examples include EJBs, Servlets, and Axis components (web services). Each of those need a container for their components that is domain specific. The new container needs to be extensible enough to satisfy them. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For additional commands, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
