Ceki:
I agree, CPAN is a great model to look at in terms of a good way of
collecting and distributing useful stuff...but wait, there's more! If you
take CPAN a step further and invoke the CPAN shell on just about any unixish
system ( chances are you know about the CPAN shell but just in case...):
perl -MCPAN -e shell
or on some systems just
cpan
you will see the true coolness of CPAN. While the cpan shell isn't perfect,
it is incredibly useful. Being able to find the right module to fit your
needs without even having to open up a browser is pretty cool. Being able to
install it and the modules it might depend on without leaving that shell is
*extremely* good stuff.
This kinda brings me to one point that I've been waiting to inject into
this thread. To me we have at least two seperate issues:
* A set of well focused utility classes built by members of the
jakarta community to address common areas of need/duplication
for people building server based applications. ( What Ted has
proposed as zarf ).
* As many people have mentioned, each individual component
could pretty much stand alone.
* In cases where it makes sense, CPAN style Bundles could
package related components that have reached a point
where the API is stable ( does this ever happen? ).
* An emphasis on differentiating 'stable' and 'devel' versions
could help with some of the 'moving target' issues many
people have mentioned.
* I agree with many people who have pointed out that a set of
well focused utilities does not really prevent the creation
of a few different tools that do the same job, in slightly
different ways.
* The initial focus could be a small set of tools that have
already been identified. In the short term these projects
could help identify how this project could/should/may work
best.
* A CPAN style project that would provide:
* Developers a place to make well focused utilities available.
* A distribution system that helps promote sane packaging,
documentation, and versioning.
* The biggest distinction between this and the jakarta
utilities would be the scale/scope of the project.
* This particular project would, as Ceki pointed out,
take large amounts of effort and time just to get
the ball rolling.
* A large number of mirror sites would seem to be implied
by the nature of this project.
* Not knowing the finer points of the apache and jakarta
missions, I would assume it may very well be out of the
intended scope of either. I do think that the tools used
to create this system would most likely come from within
the projects already under way in jakarta ( ant,
alexandria, many others I am sure... )
Well this email is long enough already...but on a final note I would love to
contribute any way I can ( my programming skills are somewhat suspect, but I
am sure I could find something useful to do with myself ). Oh and Ted, how
about 'Jakarta Sledge' as an alternative to zarf. For some reason this is
stuck in my mind, I keep having vague memories of a saying that goes
something like "If all you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like
a nail". Funny enough, I think I read that somewhere on perl.com...
David Weinrich
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