>>How does depending on Avalon Framework limit reusability? You'll have a >>really tough time convincing me here...
I'll try my best. It's mainly a question of what it takes to be able to start using components, namely having a container to run the Avalon framework. Yes, the interfaces look nice and it's a relatively small dependency. But consider my current project. I have Java code that runs in these various environments: 1. Standalone server - an XML socket server to talk to Flash and other components, and some other fun stuff. 2. Web server - much of our code is here since its a webapp and I'm running with a web application server (Resin or Tomcat). 3. JUnit tests run from ant 4. Latka functional end-to-end tests 5. Swing-based, webstart-deployed app for some complex parts of the admin system (ok, not yet, but that's the plan this quarter) Right now from what I know about Avalon, the only convenient way to use the Avalon interfaces is from within Phoenix, so environment 1 works, but environment 2-5 I'm stunted. I have to write a bunch of code developing containers to support these other environments. Well, I could either do that to use Excalibur and some other existing components, or I could just use DBCP and hunt around for other pooling and other libraries. I have this one part of my webapp where I need to create a pool of threads to pull data from another server and has frustrating timeout issues, and I would love to use the Avalon thread manager to do this. Unfortunately, it's just not worth the effort. Maybe if someone contributes a servlet context listener to be an Avalon container in webapps, an ant-based container, also very important - something to support unit testing (I'd note that I haven't seen any unit testing in Avalon and it's very frustrating within the James project to do testing because we're using Avalon), and possibly a generic command-line style container, the Avalon component architecture might see more widespread use. Anyway, hopefully that somewhat explains the obstacles in the of using me Avalon and why I turn to Commons stuff regularly. -- Serge Knystautas Loki Technologies - Unstoppable Websites http://www.lokitech.com/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For additional commands, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
