On Sep 4, 2007, at 10:55 PM, Catalin Hritcu wrote: > Hi, > > On 9/4/07, Catalin Hritcu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> Hello Vincent, >> >> I thought more about this and I think you are right, we should use a >> facade. I will implement this in the following days. >> > Created http://jira.xwiki.org/jira/browse/XWIKI-1706 for this. Is > there any way to reference this discussion from there ? Is there any > working archive of the new devs mailing list ?
Sure, see http://www.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Community/MailingLists :) Thanks -Vincent >> On 8/28/07, Vincent Massol <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >>> Hi Catalin, >>> >>> A new healthy fight! :) >>> >>> See below. >>> >>> On Aug 27, 2007, at 10:32 PM, Catalin Hritcu wrote: >>> >>> [snip] >>> >>>>> Pros: >>>>> * A single way for all xwiki clients to connect to XWiki servers >>>>> * Less maintenance, less documentation, less work in general since >>>>> someone >>>>> else is developing swizzle :). This point only is huge. >>>>> >>>> I would not stress this. Actually I already worked quite a lot on >>>> improving swizzle so far and I think there are many other ways >>>> we will >>>> have to improve swizzle. What is nice about it was having a visible >>>> working project to start from, rather than implementing it from >>>> scratch. Having David to "guard" the source is just the cherry >>>> on top >>>> of the cake. >>> >>> You didn't spend even 1% of the time it took to create Swizzle as it >>> is today and if you think about how swizzle will evolve in the >>> future >>> that percentage drops down to 0.01%. This is why I thought this >>> should be stressed out :) >>> >>> [snip] >>> >>>>> * If swizzle goes away or is abandonned then it'll be bad for >>>>> xwiki and we'd >>>>> need to support it/reintegrate it. >>>>> >>>> First, swizzle is open source so can't "go away", we can always >>>> continue to maintain it. >>> >>> That's harder than you think. Radeox went away and are we >>> maintaining >>> it? Nope. Of course we can always say that it's because its >>> architecture was too limited, etc but had it been maintained its >>> architecture could have evolved too. The same would happen with >>> swizzle if it goes away IMO. But it's not only an issue of Swizzle >>> going away because it's abandoned. Imagine a competitor project >>> appears and it's better than swizzle for XWiki. How do we tell all >>> our users that they have to redo all their client code. We won't and >>> thus we probably won't move to this better project because we have >>> standardized on Swizzle. >>> >>> It's about having a stable client-side interface. >>> >>> I much prefer the approach where we define our model objects (we >>> need >>> them anyway on the server so it may even be possible to share >>> some of >>> them on the client - Not sure about this but it's a thought) and our >>> interfaces and we keep the implementation separate. I'm 100% for >>> implementing those interfaces with Swizzle. >>> >>> In addition we need to offer a XWiki-specific API so instead of >>> offering several remoting APIs I propose we offer only one. Then >>> it's >>> up to the implementations to implement them. The confluence >>> implementation (using Swizzle) could throw NotImplementedException >>> for stuff it doesn't implement so that client code using it will be >>> 100% confluence-compatible if that's the user's desire. And we would >>> be able to have a single unified API that has all the XWiki-specific >>> stuff. >>> >>>> And if it ever goes abandoned how would this >>>> be any worse than what we have now? Now we have two "little- >>>> swizzle" >>>> implementations one of them was _already_ abandoned, and the >>>> other is >>>> very likely to grow into a full fledged "swizzle". Even if we >>>> have to >>>> maintain one swizzle it's a big gain over having to maintain many. >>> >>> See above. >>> >>>> >>>>> Actually this is a point that is >>>>> bothering me Catalin. I think we'd need our own object model and >>>>> expose that >>>>> as a component and then provide a default implementation using >>>>> swizzle >>>>> behind the hood. Same as what we're doing for everything. This >>>>> will also >>>>> make the API seamless WRT extra APIs we have for xwiki (like >>>>> getting >>>>> objects, etc). >>>>> >>>> It is true that swizzle provides an implementation but not an >>>> interface. However, why can't we provide interfaces as part of the >>>> swizzle project ? Why can't we make swizzle more component- >>>> friendly by >>>> just changing it? Why would we need another XWiki-specific wrapper >>>> layer? >>> >>> Swizzle is not our project. We could become committers to it of >>> course but I assure you it's still going to be 100 times more >>> difficult to evolve Swizzle than to evolve XWiki code. For 2 >>> reasons: >>> * We "own" XWiki. All committers on XWiki are interested by XWiki >>> only. >>> * Swizzle has to stay generic and making a generic change is always >>> more difficult than making a specific change. The same applies to >>> the >>> fact that Swizzle if confluence-specific. >>> >>> Regarding the confluence-specific, it bothers me that the only >>> remoting interface we're providing is confluence-specific and has >>> confluence written all over. I think we should offer a XWiki- >>> specific >>> API and let the user choose the implementation he wants >>> transparently >>> (confluence or not). >>> >>>> One advantage I see of improving swizzle rather than hiding it >>>> away is >>>> that this way we are guaranteed(!) to stay compatible with >>>> confluence >>>> on the common features. While if you start to develop wrappers >>>> on top >>>> of swizzle that may or may not be the case. >>> >>> We wouldn't loose this feature by using Swizzle as an implementation >>> of our API. >>> >>>>> So IMO: >>>>> * We shouldn't use swizzle directly >>>>> * We should develop our own client side Java Objects and API >>>>> *interface* for >>>>> people interacting with XWiki remotely. >>>>> >>>> Why can't interfaces be done inside the swizzle project ? Why >>>> should >>>> we try to hide swizzle away ? >>> >>> See above. >>> >>>>> - That API should be independent of the protocol used. >>>>> >>>> Swizzle is actually already independent of the protocol used. It >>>> could >>>> work with SOAP as well as XML-RPC if somebody went into the >>>> trouble to >>>> reimplement everything for SOAP. The interface would be the same >>>> and a >>>> client would not be able to tell any difference. >>> >>> Then all the best. We can benefit from that. >>> >>>>> - A default implementation should be done using swizzle. It'll >>>>> be mostly >>>>> empty and only call out swizzle objects/swizzle APIs >>>>> * XEClipse should be refactored to use this API >>>>> * This API should be developed using components and using the new >>>>> org.xwiki >>>>> namespace. >>>>> >>>> Why can't this be done in an interoperable fashion part of the >>>> swizzle >>>> project ? Why can't the namespace be org.codehaus.swizzle :) ? >>>> Isn't >>>> this "not-made-here" attitude? >>> >>> Yep and that's important IMO (see above). The strategy I'd like to >>> have for XWiki from now on is to develop components and provide >>> XWiki >>> interface classes. The implementations can be done using whatever >>> external frameworks. >>> >>>>> WDYT? >>>>> >>>> I think that we have no good reason to hide swizzle away under more >>>> wrapper layers since _swizzle_is_a_wrapper_itself_, and I think >>>> that >>>> we can solve any modularity/componentization problems inside the >>>> swizzle project. >>> >>> See above again. >>> >>> Let's see what others say. >>> >>> Thanks >>> -Vincent >>> _______________________________________________ devs mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs
