Understood. I felt the same way when I started with Tomcat.
The documentation is under review, and will be updated. I know this and can
say this because I am one of the people doing the reviewing (what little I
have been able to get done so far due to time constraints). Again, though,
it's the open source model, and the Apache method. That means that there
are no timelines, no delivery date guarantees, and no promises. It is what
it is at that point in time. Sometimes it sucks, sometimes it doesn't.
I think though, that making a generalization is unwise. Tomcat actually is
very well documented, when you consider that it's the reference
implementation of the spec. The spec gets quoted here quite a bit, and is
available to anyone who wants to read it. If you want to know what
something is, or why it is, or how it is, you can read the spec. The source
code is always available, too.
I've been subscribed here for six months now...a lot less than some, maybe
more than most. The difficulties that people have, by and large, are 1)
application oriented and 2) related to Apache integration with a connector.
By #1 I mean that many people jump into writing servlets and JSP and find
that it isn't that simple and that the application design and architecture
was broken from the beginning, and choose to blame Tomcat for that (at least
initially) until corrected. By #2 I mean that the Tomcat team has enough to
do without having to worry about integrating with Apache. Integrating with
Apache isn't required, it's an optional configuration that is used by a lot
of people, granted, but it isn't required or necessary for Tomcat to be
developed or used. The number of posts related to problems with Tomcat
itself, like setting up SSL, or managing connections and processes, or
memory management, or whatever, are proportionately quite small to the
total.
I think a big step towards alleviating a lot of the frustration would be to
have an FAQ, and that's something I would like to pursue. that would give
people more time to research more difficult problems and questions. I know
an FAQ would probably save me a couple hours a day.
I don't mean to sound like a jerk, and there were many times in the past
when I felt exactly as you do when using various open source projects over
the years, but the solution isn't ranting or complaining, but instead asking
yourself how can I help? and how much time can I devote to helping?
That's not me being arrogant because I am one of those who tries to help,
it's me describing how the open source model works. I know everyone knows
how the model works, I can only assume that frustration causes people to
complain and criticize. That's fine, I've done it myself unfortunately, but
it isn't the solution, and it certainly doesn't help. Believe me, I'm well
aware of when I make an error or a HOWTO that I wrote isn't clear, I get
emails from all over the world asking for free help when it happens. The
only solution, for me or for anyone else, is to keep plugging away, and to
keep hoping that the project itself stays interesting and challenging,
because honestly, that's the only incentive. That, and the desire to give
back for something you got for free in the first place.
I think the main problem is lack of continuity. There are several places
where it says don't use webapp including the connector itself. Heck,
people post here and say things like I read that I shouldn't use WARP, but
its just so darn easy to use, can I use it? What do you answer to that?
Should they be ignored? JK is, in my opinion, the only production stable
connector for 4.x, I think not having documentation for it would be more of
a disservice than the opposite. But that's me. When you consider that the
connector teams aren't the Tomcat team (generally speaking), it gets even
more messy, especially on the Apache side or IIS side. I don't think it's
reasonable to expect the Tomcat team to devote resources to making
everything warm and fuzzy with IIS, for example.
I don't think that will ever go away, awesome documentation or not. Tomcat
is not a web server, and in many places it can't be used as one due to
legacy constraints or other requirements. The connectors and the issues
that come with them are here to stay, I think.
John
-Original Message-
From: Jerry Ford [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Wednesday, December 18, 2002 5:09 PM
To: Tomcat Users List
Subject: [off-topic] Re: jsps and servlets don't work
/***
*
* Caution: LONG Rant Warning :)
*
**/
Turner, John wrote:
I don't think they are poorly documented at all. Just the
HOWTOs written by
myself and others on this list alone provide comprehensive
documentation.
John:
// begin rant:
With all due respect and recognition to the enormous efforts you
personally appear to have put into making Tomcat accessible, the
documentation
