Hi Jun, Glad to hear you're interested in XEclipse.
On 03/24/2011 04:47 PM, Jun Han wrote: > Dear Thomas and Fabio, > > Thanks a lot for your prompt replies and they helped a lot to understand > the project. > > When I took a first thought about how to achieve RESTification, one > thing popped out of my head is to add an abstract communication layer to > XEclipse without touching its logic and user interface implementation. > Considering the fact that XEclipse itself will be under major code > refactoring in the project of "XEclipse editors improvement" as well, > adding an abstract layer will make the two projects work in parallel > without too much conflict. Given the fact that the two projects don`t really affect one another, you are pretty much free to experiment. Besides that, you will be working on a separate fork of the XEclipse project (most likely in the sandbox svn directory http://svn.xwiki.org/svnroot/xwiki/contrib/sandbox/ ) which you will merge back when you are finished. > From Fabio's email, this abstract communication layer is already > available for XEclipse, Yes. You can find the interface and the two (local-Filesystem and remote-XML-RPC) implementations here http://svn.xwiki.org/svnroot/xwiki/xeclipse/trunk/plugins/org.xwiki.eclipse.core/src/main/java/org/xwiki/eclipse/core/storage/ > but it is not RESTful yet. Therefore, I will > take a deeper look at the source code of XEclipse with two questions in > mind: > 1. figure out a way to refactor without affecting the logic and UI layer > of XEclipse You could start by providing an implementation equivalent to RemoteXWikiDataStorage.java but which uses REST instead of XML-RPC, then work your way up by extending the IDataStorage.java interface with new functionality and provide the equivalent UI. > 2. provide more support for logic layer, e.g., lazy initialization/retrieval > > Best regards > Jun Han Feel free to ask if you have any more questions. Good luck, Eduard > On 03/24/2011 06:33 AM, Fabio Mancinelli wrote: >> Hi Jun >> >> On Wed, Mar 23, 2011 at 6:35 PM, Jun Han<[email protected]> wrote: >>> Hi, Everyone, >>> >>> I am going to apply for student developer in GSoC 2011 and am interested >>> in one of proposed XWiki projects, XEclipse "RESTification". >>> >> Glad to hear that you are interested in this project. >> Thomas has already replied to your questions but I will add some bits >> as one of the mentors of the project. >> >>> Currently I am a fourth year Ph.D. student in the department of Computer >>> Science, University of Georgia, USA. My research focuses on >>> Simulation/Modelling and Web services, and applies them to facilitate >>> bioinformatics research. >>> >>> My strengths are the following: >>> (1). 6-year of Java programming experience including both desktop and >>> web development and able to perform full lifecyle software development. >>> (2). developed a SOAP Web service management system using Eclipse RCP >>> and SWT >>> >> Very good. >> >>> (3). developed REST-ful Web services and integrated SOAP Web services >>> from other collaborators (in German and Japan) to implement integrated >>> scientific workflow following Web 2.0 standards >>> >> Very good. >> >>> After reading through the descriptions of proposed projects, XEclipse >>> "RESTification" is of great interest to me. This project involves >>> communication via SOAP and REST-ful Web services and is developed in >>> Eclipse SWT platform, therefore, I might be a potential match for this >>> project based on the skill set. >>> >>> I have several questions regarding the requirement: >>> (1) what is target development platform? >>> The current XEclipse requires Eclipse Ganymede 3.4 and the most >>> recent release is Eclipse 3.6 and 3.7. Is there any plan to support them? >>> >> The "requires Ganymede" is a leftover... When XEclipse was actively >> developed the most stable Eclipse version was 3.3 (hence the "require >> 3.4") >> I didn't try but I think that XEclipse should run without any problem >> on 3.7 right now. >> >> Anyway the idea is to support the latest version of Eclipse, i.e. 3.7 >> >>> (2) What is the current status of XWiki communication layer? >>> From what I understand, SOAP + XML play a main role in the current >>> system. Now XWiki is turning to REST eventually. >>> I read some discussions on Mar 11 2011 about REST API in dev mail >>> list, which mentioned that REST API is not there yet. Does this mean >>> that the whole REST communication layer is not available yet? >>> >> Not quite right. >> >> XWiki supports XMLRPC and REST. AFAIK, We don't have any "SOAPy" web >> services. >> I would say that XMLRPC is deprecated because it has several problems >> and limitations. >> >> So the RESTful API is definitely the preferred mechanism for >> interacting with XWiki in a "machine oriented" way. >> >> Thomas already told you where to find information about this API (code >> https://svn.xwiki.org/svnroot/xwiki/platform/core/trunk/xwiki-rest/ >> and documentation >> http://platform.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Features/XWikiRESTfulAPI) >> >>> (3) What extent of RESTification we are going to achieve for XEclipse? >>> This is closely related to question (2). If REST API is available, >>> the XEclipse RESTification will only need to construct the REST-ful >>> request (i.e., @GET /rest/{space}/{page}) and parse result from server. >>> If not, more work might be involved. >>> >> Indeed whay you say is part of the job. >> However XEclipse has an "abstraction layer" for the communication. >> This abstraction layer provides interfaces for retrievening and >> manipulating XWiki objects. >> >> Now the main goals of the project is to provide an HTTP-based >> implementation of this layer so that XEclipse will be able to >> communicate to with XWiki using REST. >> This is of course the tip of the iceberg :) >> >> Actually while "RESTifying" this we should also refactor where >> necessary and improve things. >> For example, one thing that comes to my mind is to enable lazy >> retrieval everywhere: we don't want to load in the interface thousands >> of items using a single request! >> >> I hope that this answers your questions and if you have more don't >> hesitate to ask! >> >> Cheers, >> Fabio >> _______________________________________________ >> devs mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs > _______________________________________________ > devs mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs > _______________________________________________ devs mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs
