On Friday, Oct 10, 2003, at 04:01 Europe/Rome, Geoff Howard wrote:
Stefano Mazzocchi wrote:
On Wednesday, Oct 8, 2003, at 04:50 Europe/Rome, Geoff Howard wrote:Stefano Mazzocchi wrote:
I have updated the block design documents on the wiki. Changes were:
...
A few things are left to decide: 1) the block metadata information in the block.xml file see http://wiki.cocoondev.org/Wiki.jsp?page=BlocksCob 2) how blocks expose classloading to other blocks
...
This might suggest the concept that private is the location of all the things that are private soExposing classes
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Stephen proposed to separate the classes to expose in a different jar and expose that. I like this. It's simple and effective.
But instead of declaring classloaders or classpaths in the blocks, I propose to extend the block FS layout so that we have
for individual classes and resources:
/classes
/classes/public
/classes/private
for jars:
/lib
/lib/public
/lib/private
Hmmm. That is quite different than what one would expect from the WAR paradigm, no? Would
COB-INF/[classes|lib] COB-INF/public/[classes|lib]
or
COB-INF/private/[classes|lib] COB-INF/public/[classes|lib]
be any better?
private/lib
means "I have libraries in the private section", so maybe I can put something else as well to have it protected? while
lib/private
means "these are the private libraries"... but doesn't say anything about non-lib things. I still like this approach better, even if it moves away from the WAR paradigm (which is not a big deal, IMO, since blocks are different enough already)
Ok, that's a good point. I have a parallel concern that something like
COB-INF/classes/com/mypackage/whyisntitfound/NotFound.class
or
package public.com.myconfused.package public Class StillNotFound {...
will pop up regularly on the users list.
hmmm, don't think so, don't see many users actually adding their own single classes to those blocks and then deploy. I think they will put their prepackaged jars in there. but hey, you might be right.
One more idea to try to avert potential confusion.
COB-INF/private-lib/ COB-INF/private-classes/ COB-INF/public-lib/ COB-INF/public-classes/
?
I'm -0 on this, don't see the need, but I see your point.
- Not found resources will have to go through every pipeline to determine that it's not found. With fallback behavior due to polymorphism this gets worse.I fail to see this, can you explain why you think this is the case?
sitemap references: block:external-skin:/stylesheets/news2html.xslt
block manager has external-skin -> http://mycompany.com/skins/corporate/34.3.345
-> extends ->
http://yetanothercompany.com/skins/fancy/1.2.2
checks WEB-INF/blocks/384938958499/sitemap.xmap (by the way, the Cob samples at the wiki don't have sitemaps for the skins blocks which would presumably need them to expose their xslt in the example right?)
no, if the sitemap is not explicitly exposed, then the block manager will default to sitemap.xmap in the root. if *that* is not present, than the block does not expose resources and the block: protocol would return a 404 or trigger an exception.
If that sitemap doesn't override /stylesheets/news2html.xslt, every
pipeline in that sitemap needs to be checked _then_ block manager goes on to WEB-INF/blocks/how-does-the-block-wiring-handle-blocks-extended-but- not-otherwise-used/sitemap.xmap
if there are several levels of extension, this could be a long process.
true
But now a worse thought comes to mind:
suppose http://yetanothercompany.com/skins/fancy/1.2.2 has defined
<map:match pattern="stylesheets/*.xslt"> <map:read src="styles/{1}.xslt"/> </map:match>
but http://mycompany.com/skins/corporate/34.3.345 only wants to override /stylesheets/news2html.xslt and /stylesheets/another.xslt
if it is allowed it do
<map:match pattern="stylesheets/*.xslt"> <map:read src="mystyles/{1}.xslt"/> </map:match>
then we must make the block manager and sitemap engine have a new behavior: if a match exists, but the source is not actually found, proceed to the super-block etc.
nono, inheritance works as the URI matching level, not at the resource level. If you match the URI and then you failed to provide a resource, you get a 404. So, at least, you know where you are.
That's a mess, but so is having to set up a whole series of identical pipelines for every image, stylesheet, etc you need to override from a super-block, isn't it?
You can use regexp matching. It's not that bad.
I don't picture extension to change *everything* inside the block, but just a few details. anti-patterns will emerge and verbosity of the sitemap would reduce the change of abusing block extension.
Now, perhaps this could be handled in other ways by using selectors instead of wildcards in matchers, but this could make writing a block a little finicky.
i think regexp matching is perfect for this
If we decide to go with existing semantics with no explicit list of provided or overridden resources, we'll need to think through and very clearly document best practices that are not onerous. On users for whom this may be a very mindbending concept.
True, but as I said, it could have a useful side effect: you use extension only when it really makes sense or forces you to think a better (delegation oriented) refactoring pattern (extension is cool, but should be used much less than delegation)
Ok, there are several thoughts in all the above. Here they are with what is in my mind the state of the discussion:
1) Resource access
"Should resources be provided via pipeline, via standard file i/o, or a combination of both?"
I think we now all agree that pipeline-only is the way to go.
cool
2) Resource visibility
"Should some ability to distinguish between public and private resources/pipelines exist?"
Yes, and @block-access="public" handles this well presuming that discussion can be considered settled. (but see below)
all right
3) Explicit resource uri's "Should exposed resource (pipeline) uri's be declared explicitly?"
This is where I still have some reservations as begun above in the not-found/fallback example.
<map:match pattern="stylesheets/*.xslt"> <map:read src="styles/{1}.xslt"/> </map:match>
Is convenient to write, but may be inconvenient to use for block users, extenders, implementers, and the BlockManager (code). Perhaps the first can be taken care of with human readable documentation (though I fear what the cocoon blocks will have in this respect). Perhaps the second is unfounded. I'm not convinced of either of those and think it merits further thinking.
A possible solution: Rather than disallowing wildcards, perhaps a part of block.xml could be
<resources> <uri>/stylesheets/news2html.xslt</uri> ... </resources>
Maybe that'd be a pain but it'd leave no guessing. Maybe:
... <extends block="http://yetanothercompany.com/skins/fancy/1.2.2";> <uri>/stylesheets/news2html.xslt</uri> </extends> ...
Would be better? It would get rid of the fallback problem.
I don't think we have a fallback problem if we stick to the concept that matching simply follows the sitemap rules and nothing else. If it works today and nobody complains I don't see why it should work there as well.
-- Stefano.
