In this discussion people have been making two kinds of lists. The list of hypothetical reasons why activity seems to be petering out. The list of possible cures for those hypothetical ills.
We need a third list. A list of fun hacks that 2.0 enables.
It would be good to spend more effort on what the compelling value in the 2.0 family is and making it more accessible for people. Doc that lowers the barrier to entry. Success stories that create a sense of safety.
Fundamentally, the filter mechanism in 2.0 makes it easy to mix and match different ways of obtaining content with different ways of delivering content. Need to run mod_include on the output of your servlet engine? In 2.0, you can do so by editing a config file. With most other webservers, 1.3 included, you have to rewrite the appserver connector. Need to compress or encrpyt the output of *any* handler? In 2.0, you can do so by loading the right filter and editing a config file. Need to use special logic for reading files from a document root due to NFS race conditions? In 2.0, just add a new handler and you can seamlessly stream the output through whatever stack of output filters you're already using.
As for what's *wrong* with 2.0 (and 2.1), at the top of my list is scalability.
We probably need to move to a multiple-connection-per-thread architecture for
lower memory usage and more predictable response times under high loads.
Historically, this has been one of the most-discussed changes proposed for
2.1; the only limitation is finding time to work on it. :-)
Brian
