Hi Alex,
Just wanted to say that this is an excellent message. Whether everyone
agrees with it or not is beside the point; very readable and informative for
field perspective.
I totally agree on GPL and LGPL. If I use and improve a free library, I
think it makes sense to be obliged to share my improvements. That has
little or nothing to do with the rest of my code.
Last, a definition of documentation:
Something you hate when you have to do it, and causes you to hate others
when they don't. I would throw in some form of requirements as well, so
users ( sometimes we are users ) understand what it is supposed to do and
its capabilities and limitations.
Thanks again for taking the time to share your thoughts with us.
Joe Sam Shirah
Autumn Software
-----Original Message-----
From: Alex Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Thursday, June 03, 1999 8:46 PM
Subject: Re: WebMacro versus FreeMarker
>Before starting a project (standard e-commerce stuff and multi-tier
>architecture), the only piece of the architecture I
>wasnt sure on was the presentation layer. Servlets are 50% of that with the
>other half being a template framework.
>
>Two strategies emerged as top contenders: JSP and its various flavors and
>"pure" templates (Webmacro, dexios.template aka Freemarker). Other
>possibilities were generating HTML "by hand" from the servlet using either
>"straight" (dumb) out.println("<...>") approach, generating HTML using a
>library (WebLogic's htmlKona, ECS), or using a mix of these two. Jason
>Hunter does a fairly good job of introducing the readers to the latter two
>technologies in his book but omits the templates, and that's a shame, IMO,
>because templates are a correct way to go for anything but the most simple
>application. (They're not even mentioned in passing in the otherwise
>excellent book. *shrug*)
>
>JSP I rejected right away as something very wrong. Not only the syntax was
>unappealing (to say the least) but the idea of mixing Java and HTML in the
>same page seemed like someone's Javascript-induced nightmare. To elaborate,
>my goal was to have an HTML designer and an application developer work more
>or less in parallel. The pages and the code would be created at the same
>time and integrated daily. This is possible with JSP but the drawbacks are
>many, tight coupling between Java and HTML and lack of context (is this is
a
>servlet? a client-side program? a page? SSI-enabled page ? all of the
>above?) being only the tip of the iceberg. JSP does not define exactly how
>the directives are to be processed by the JSP processor, which to me
spelled
>"problem". If most of the CPU and I/O time is spent on evaluating the
>template and I dont know what's going on under the hood, it's a high time
>for me to look at another option. (As an aside, GNUJsp from bitmechanic.com
>looked better than others).
>
>"Pure" templates were really my only choice and there werent many *good*
>template frameworks out there. For my project *good* meant stable and
>compact with decent documentation. (It's still a shock to me that many
>people dont consider documentation an integral part of the project.
>Documentation is your *face* but I digress.) I consulted a list of template
>packages in Alex Chaffee's FAQ and found only two that satisfied the
>requirements: dexios.template (now Freemarker) and WebMacro. I wrote a
>sample servlet with a bunch of data being pulled out from the database and
>tried using both packages.
>
>My main criteria remained the same: stable and compact. I felt that
>Freemarker satisfied them to a greater extent than WebMacro. Several
>reasons:
>
>1) Freemarker is template-only package whereas WebMacro tries to go beyond
>that with the resource broker(s), template providers and other possibly
nice
>but unnecessary (in my case) stuff. I wanted nothing more than a way to say
> Template t = new Template(new File("foo.template"));
> t.output(req.getOutputStream());
>
>To do this, I had to write my own provider for WebMacro that would pick up
a
>file based on the filename rather than search for it in the classpath
>(default). Freemarker didnt need this as it's a simpler system based on
>files and the above is what it was explicitly designed for.
>
>2) Freemarker has a simple script syntax whereas WebMacro is more like
Perl.
>Hidden in this seemingly innocuous statement is the implementation detail
>that greatly affects the performance of the package: WebMacro uses
>introspection extensively to find the data in the supplied context whereas
>Freemarker opts for an adapter approach where the template writer has to
>write an explicit query for a piece of data based on the supplied context
>key. That is, if you have
>the following line in your template:
>
><input type="text" name="name" value="$foo.bar.baz">
>
>WebMacro will look for bar and baz (and possibly foo) using Reflection
>whereas Freemarker will force you to write something like
>
>if (key.equals("foo")) return "foobar"
>
>somewhere in your adapter. This is a bit more work but Freemarker's adapter
>design is elegant and not much of a hindrance. (If you ever dealt with
>java.lang.reflect, you know how "fast" it can be, not to mention potential
>stack explosions).
>
>3) Documentation. I found Freemarker's docs to be well-organized, coherent
>and with a working walkthrough of a guestbook example. WebMacro has the
same
>but it's about 50% of what it has to be, partially due to its complexity. I
>had problems with WebMacro's
>guestbook example due to the default template provider's functionality of
>looking for a template in the classpath.
>
>4) Licensing. WebMacro is either GPL or $$$. Freemarker is LGPL (always
>free; if you modify its code it becomes very much like GPL). The big
>difference between GPL and LGPL is that the former requires you to supply
>the source code of your application whereas the latter requires you only to
>supply the binaries, standard procedure in any commercial development,
>regardless of the company size. LGPL was created precisely for the purpose
>of using a library, free of charge even if you will sell the product that
>uses it. (LGPL refers to this as "work that uses a library").
>
>and last but not least, the claim that many template packages use as bait:
>"let the designer write HTML and use our simple syntax to control the data
>flow". This is a myth as most HTML designers have a difficult time
>understanding foreach loops and other programmatic constructs. Usually good
>designers come from art/publishing/media side of the pond and are excellent
>visual artists with poor grasp of data structure constructs...and that's
>good. I'd rather have a strong artist who knows his craft than a
>middle-of-the-road designer who knows Javascript. ("Instead of table, you
>have a foreach loop with a single row. - <Blank stare>"). Therefore, the
>application developer has to take on the responsibility of marking up the
>template. As such, lesser syntax complexity and greater programmatic
control
>is always appreciated.
>
>Comments, flames, etc are welcome. I am particularly interested in knowing
>whether there are other template packages unknown to me that can measure up
>to Freemarker or WebMacro, both of commercial and/or free (Open Source,
GNU)
>nature. (In fact, if someone wrote a good commercial package, it'd sell
>quite nicely).
>
>Alex.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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