I've been taking a closer look at the Jakarta Commons project recently (well
worth a look!) and thought that the taglibs project could use a similar
structure.
http://jakarta.apache.org/commons/index.html
The commons project consists of
* Commons Proper: a repository of ready to use components.
* Directory: a catalog of components
* Sandbox: a workspace for component development
The Sandbox sounded a particularly good idea. The way it works in Commons
project is that any committer can ask for commit access to the sandbox area
and use it as a development area. Then when the code is ready for prime time
it can be voted on and moved into the Commons Proper.
I was thinking it might be a good idea to have the same thing in the taglibs
project. The sandbox area would be useful for developers of taglibs. It
would allow us to experiment a little and create new taglibs (possilbly
collectively) then when they are ready, vote to have them 'released' into
the 'proper' area. It would also mean we could move some of the cruft into
the sandbox, leaving only the useful, ready for prime time taglibs in the
'proper' area.
Once the overnight build process is upgraded a little to work with the
online Tomcat installation we could have an online demo of all the taglibs
in both the proper area and the sandbox area. This would make the job of
evaluating new taglibs easier - people will be able to just click on a URL
and browse the documentation, Javadoc, run the examples and look at the JSP
code.
Thoughts?
James
