Sylvain,
A bit short on time ATM, I don't want to leave you waiting on some full lenght reply, so I'm jotting down my wild catched-while-under-the-shower-thoughts:
I'ld like to make some consensus proposal which in my head (current vague idea) could be hooked up by making distinction between the run-time and the design-time:
at design time the distinct roles should be able to write up their seperated view of the reality that hooks up to an agreed least common denominator (as you describe it) version of the model
at runtime I really would like the unified information (i.e. with all granularity brought in from both sides) to be present in the (single) Woody widget-model since I realy believe such would simplify and streamline things
this might bring us the best of both worlds?
and it somewhat fits in with your upcoming mixing work?
(and maybe this is just what you tried to tell me all this time :-p)
Shared neurons again : re-thinking to my previous post, I realized exactly what you say. The various model extensions needed by each layer need to be physically separated (different people, different files), but must be assembled into a single runtime model.
So actually, what we need is a way for people to organise this global model into various files that correspond to their team organisation, so that they don't step on each other's toes. Hence the need for different separations depending on the context.
Still on the unease-feel part of things: I have the feeling your target mix envisions a shift from model-designer role to take up some of the template-designer role (or vice versa) which leads you to bring-in the layout-designer to gain a new separation in the now accumulated (too much) work...
I do see your use case, but there is still some red flag waving at the back of my brain about how the mix should be possible the other way around as well (ie towards the back-end)...
I told it already: on the front-end side, this can go through catalogues of macro-widgets, and this can go through the binding on the back-end side.
-marc=
PS: your reply got me surfin' on the anywhere site: am I the only one dreaming of seeing some of this supported in the webappstudio? (would be way out cool, starting to drool already)
It's not anywhere, but *anyware* ;-). As for the webapp studio, it effectively currently supports strong separation between the different layers, but there's no equivalent to Woody's aggregate fields as it requires the same data granularity on all layers. But shhh... woody will be part of the next version. Shhhh... ;-)
Sylvain
-- Sylvain Wallez Anyware Technologies http://www.apache.org/~sylvain http://www.anyware-tech.com { XML, Java, Cocoon, OpenSource }*{ Training, Consulting, Projects } Orixo, the opensource XML business alliance - http://www.orixo.com
