Am Samstag, 18. Oktober 2003 02:13 schrieb Damm, Gary: > Any opinions on these tools? I code my Struts applications (4 > successful projects) in Eclipse. I see these tools as a potential > timesaver now that I understand the framework. Anyone using them > that wants to give feedback?
Well, I don't have any experience with M7 and only limited experience with Struts Studio (I evaluated the Community edition some time ago and can't say anything about the main product). First of all, the over- all concept of visualizing the page flow based on struts-config.xml is a great idea, though it takes some time to get accustomed to it. Note that this approach is generally limited to what you actually enter in struts-config.xml, so if you say something like 'return mapping.getInputForward(); somewhere, it won't show up in the model later. Apart from that, this concept has some major advantages, as the visual model gives you an instant oversight about how your Struts application is meant to generally behave, which is a definite plus for complex applications in particular. Exadel is on the right way here, IMHO, for there's a clear need to visualize how things work on an abstract scale in a way even computer-illicits like Management people can understand (and never underestimate the impact of having a diagram at hand people may not even understand, but happily agree upon it things are much too complicated for them and their money is well-spent on you caring for all those details :-), and you can't do the same with UML activity diagrams or the like on this implementation-near level. Still, as usual, diagrams don't spare you from actually coding the details, but even then the diagram helps you, as you can directly jump to the implementation class and code what is necessary. From what I can say, Exadel clearly did a great job with Struts Studio. Still, it's also lacking in some areas, and the most import one IMHO is when it actually comes to coding. In this area, Struts Studio has to compete with several full-featured IDEs (including Eclipse, probably) being around, and unfortunately, it's not fit for serving as a replacement yet. I well may be spoiled, but NetBeans, S1 Studio, Oracle JDev or JBuilder are just better at this, and probably Eclipse may be so as well. This not only includes instant access to documentation wherever needed, and in practice, I find a JSP/Servlet debugger most helpful when things don't behave as expected (even though Niklaus Wirth demanded that debuggers should be forbidden by law, for everything should be strictly based on proper use of mathematic principles and logic, 1991). This I still miss in Eclipse as well, and just starting and stopping Tomcat by some toolbar buttons, provided by an unofficial plugin AFAIK, doesn't really help me. But that's just my personal opinion. -- Chris. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
