I agree that the end goal here is the user experience. When I was working with
Jeff the other night the way to fix the logging problem at that point was to
rebuild the server. IMHO a user would at most be required to edit the
config.xml and at least be able to click a radio button for a binary operation
like enable/disable logging. Anything beyond that and we will limit our user
base as the server will be too expensive to work with.
The other thinkg to avoid is multiple configuration files. As a user I want to
find all config files in a single directory if possible (reduces my knowledge
required to use the server) and then to have as few files as possible. Again,
this all front-ended with a console that can manipulate all (or at least as many
options as possible).
I may not have captured this thought in my first post so apologies for repeating
myself.
Matt.
Bruce Snyder wrote:
I'm gonna go out on a limb here and ask why we're trying to make all
of this more difficult for users instead of easier? Requiring a user
to: 1) gain knowledge of the plans used to create the CARs, and 2) to
create a brand new XML file (config.xml) to define new functionality
or override existing functionality seems ridiculous. The proposed
solution seems to be treating the symptoms rather than the real
disease.
IMHO, CARs need to either be made more dynamic or need to be replaced
with something more dynamic. The trouble I have with CARs is that
changing them requires them to be fully rebuilt which requires the
Geronimo source. Average users don't have the knowledge or time to
deal with this so we offered the config.xml which we're finding
doesn't really solve the whole problem either. If I had my druthers,
I'd leave CARs the way they are and work to offer something more
dynamic as a long-term solution.
The idea I have is to use a standard XML dialect for configuration
files - like XBean which currently requires Spring. I'm sure that this
idea won't have many fans, but it's an easy way to reuse an existing
solution to deliver an easier experience for Geronimo users which,
IMO, should be our ultimate goal.
Bruce
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);'
Apache Geronimo (http://geronimo.apache.org/)
Castor (http://castor.org/)
