Hi Harian,
how about generating the dsl from maven inside the user´s project. Each
camel module that is referenced could offer extensions to the DSL. Then
in the generate sources phase a DSL could be constructed that includes
all camel and even user modules that contribute to the DSL. I think this
late DSL generation is the only way to bring extensibility to Java
Fluent Builders. I am not so sure about the disadvantages of this attempt.
Greetings
Christian
Hadrian Zbarcea schrieb:
Camel has this wonderful discovery mechanism for RouteBuilders,
TypeConverters, Languages, etc. so if one uses Camel she only needs to
write her code, drop it somewhere on the classpath and... everything
works.
The only main thing that's not really pluggable is the DSL. The
concept of a DSL supported for multiple languages is unique to Camel
afaik and quite a powerful one. However:
* it is hand-crafted and this led to quite a few inconsistencies
between java, xml, scala, etc.
* the dsl is not supported in a few languages yet, such as python,
ruby (expressions are supported though)
* the ProcessorType has become huge
* it's increasingly difficult/annoying to add support for a new
pattern, because this changes the API
* does not support user-defined pattern, a user is pretty much stuck
with using a processor or bean, but cannot extend the language
* does not support alternate dsl(s) in the same language, such as
java. The processors are very powerful, and one could envision using
a different language (say something like bpel), to assemble them and
get the desired behavior.
I think the biggest hurdle is I think the fact that we must support
smart completion in the ide(s) and java is not a dynamic language. I
would like to investigate the idea of patterns being *described* in a
language (such as xml, or some other grammar) and then generate the
dsl. I think it should be feasible, based on the fact that there are
not many concepts needed to describe a pattern (as a black box) and
the generated dsl could be built once (maybe packaged as a separate
jar) and reused.
Your thoughts highly appreciated.
Hadrian
--
Christian Schneider
---
http://www.liquid-reality.de
