On Thu, May 02, 2002 at 12:36:44PM +0200, Nicola Ken Barozzi wrote: > From: "Jeff Turner" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > It's disturbing to have all these "gosh I never knew" replies ;) Seems > > that Jakarta has far exceeded the point where one person can have a > > functional overview of all the subprojects. Past this point, code > > duplication inevitably occurs. Witness the Maven vs Centipede/Forrest > > flamefest on general@jakarta -- I reckon both camps were largely > > unaware of each other. > > I'm subscribed to the Maven mailing lists and regularly install Maven to > test it. > But is someone (guess who) keeps on saying that a project has a certain > functionality when it isn't true... ;-) > > The problem is not technical, ie how to inform people of the existence of a > project.
Yeah, but it's always fun to try and solve sociological problems with technology bandaids ;) I've just been reading a Greg Egan [1] book, and he paints some wonderful visions of semantic webs quietly broadening people's horizons like this. > When I read: "Many Jakarta projects read XML configuration files to > provide initialization of various Java objects within the system. > There are several ways of doing this, and the Digester component was > designed to provide a common implementation that can be used in many > different projects." > > I thought:"Gee, here comes another codebase to duplicate Avalon > Configuration stuff". Lol.. you're WAY too into this stuff ;) Configuration is a universal problem and solutions have been brewing all over Jakarta. Avalon's is nothing special. It does the job, which is a fair enough accolade. IIRC, Digester was originally a class called XmlMapper in the Tomcat 3 codebase. It's been at Jakarta probably 3 years now. > When I read:"Basically, the Digester package lets you configure an XML -> > Java object mapping module, " > > I thought: "Hey, Castor2." Except that it doesn't say "and back again". It's strictly one-way, XML -> java, so doesn't compete with Castor. > Well, guess what, I was wrong. It's not about configuration, it's not about > XML-Java *object* mapping, but XML-Java *method* mapping, which is not > clearly evident from the start. Well don't jump to THAT conclusion too soon either ;) Yes, it can map from pseudo-XPath expression to Java method calls, but equally fundamental is it's ability to create objects. So it is object mapping. And it's primary use-case is generating configuration objects. All in all, I think Craig has a pretty decent description. > Just to think of it, I thought that Cocoon was just the duplication of > servlets with a couple of xml stuff attached, and it took me 3 months to go > back on the site and have another look. Back in 1.x days that was indeed all it was. And better for it, too, for my simple purposes.. but that's another rant, which Ulrich Mayring does better than I. > The fact that there is code duplication IMO is killing the projects, because > users don't even read the info, since we're all baised towards thinking that > it's just duplication. ls jakarta-avalon-excalibur ls jakarta-commons ls jakarta-commons-sandbox Eek! Look at all those suspiciously similar packages. io, cli, store, utils, configuration, database conn pool, threading, logging. I don't think we Excalibur developers should claim the moral high ground on the code duplication issue ;P --Jeff [1] http://www.netspace.net.au/~gregegan/ > -- > Nicola Ken Barozzi [EMAIL PROTECTED] > - verba volant, scripta manent - > (discussions get forgotten, just code remains) > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For additional commands, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
