Hi IAS, Thanks for this nice summary email! See my comments below.
> -----Original Message----- > From: IAS [mailto:cactus@;iasandcb.pe.kr] > Sent: 25 October 2002 08:44 > To: 'Cactus Developers List' > Subject: Recent trend in Apache documentation methodology > > Now Apache has two major sectors about Java: XML and Jakarta. Actually > the two sectors have interacted a lot, and as its result, there have > been also several various ideas for documentation. > > Originally XML brought out stylebook as an ant task, which currently > seems obsolete somehow. For its alternative, Velocity Anakia appeared. > It utilizes Velocity template technology with xml documents, however, > does not go with XSLT. Yes and there's a reason for that: XSLT is very complex. DVSL makes it very simple. > > Velocity DVSL is slightly different from Anakia in this sense. As you > see the initials as Declarative XML Transformation and Templating, DVSL > "steals" some features of XSLT, but "still" sticks to Velocity template > language. > yes. > Meanwhile, XML Forrest came up as a sort of "ASF" representative > documentation system. Forrest is purely based on XML technologies such > as XML itself, XSLT, DTD, and possibly even XML Schema some day. Its > range is also remarkable: Ant, Centipede, Cocoon, Gump, Scarab, Slide, > and etc... All the names are on the page of the Forrest Primer. > > At this very moment, I suggest that we be as considerate as possible for > next generation documentation system for the cactus project. IMHO, > stylebook is naturally connected to Forrest, so it might be smooth and > promising to choose Forrest. > > Here's a summarized table of each technology: > document template (relative) stability > Stylebook XML XSLT (literally) too stable > Anakia XML Velocity stable > DVSL XML Velocity CVS stage I would consider DVSL to be stable. It's used in lots of places including in Maven and I've always been very happy with it. > Forrest XML XSLT CVS stage > Here's my point of view: I don't really care which technology! :-) Let me explain it better: Cactus should choose tools that make its build process faster. ATM we are using Ant. However, maintaining and improving the build is costly as the Ant scripts are getting quite sophisticated. My intent is to move to Maven as soon as I am convinced there are all the elements in Maven for that. To that effect (and for other needs at work) I have been helping the Maven project by slowly adding the necessary plugins and helping drive its features. Thus, what I would like to commit to is rather to choose the build tool than choose the doc generation tool. ATM, Maven uses DVSL. A forrest plugin is in the works but not yet integrated in Maven. Thus the current logical choice for Cactus doc system is DVSL. That said, we do not really care. What's important at this stage is to move the xdocs from the Stylebook DTD to the site DTD (can't recall the name). Then calling DVSL for example is just replacing the current <stylebook> task with the <dvsl> one (and copying one site.dvsl file). We should choose the simplest possible build as we will be moving to Maven in due time (unless someone objects of course). What do you think? Thanks -Vincent > Thank everyone in advance. > > IAS > > Independent Java Technology Evangelist > http://www.iasandcb.pe.kr > > Jakarta Seoul Project Coordinator > http://jakarta.apache-korea.org > > > > > -- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: <mailto:cactus-dev- > [EMAIL PROTECTED]> > For additional commands, e-mail: <mailto:cactus-dev- > [EMAIL PROTECTED]> -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: <mailto:cactus-dev-unsubscribe@;jakarta.apache.org> For additional commands, e-mail: <mailto:cactus-dev-help@;jakarta.apache.org>
