It's about bloody time!
Great going guys! If I was in your area I would be popping the Champagne
just about now and inviting you all - but I'm afraid Africa's a long way
away!
Greetings from sunny South Africa
Frank
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jon Stevens" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "Turbine" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>;
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, August 25, 2000 6:52 PM
Subject: [ANN] Apache Velocity
>
> The Jakarta Project is proud to announce:
>
> Apache Velocity
> <http://jakarta.apache.org/velocity/>
>
> Apache Velocity is a clean room implementation of the Java based template
> engine WebMacro (WM) <http://www.webmacro.org/>. Velocity is available
under
> the non-restrictive Apache Software Foundation license. It has been
> developed over the last three weeks primarily by Jason van Zyl (Periapt)
> with sideline help l (CollabNet) and Jon S. Stevens
> (CollabNet).
>
> WM and Velocity Differences
>
> Velocity uses a grammar based parser generated by JavaCC (Java Compiler
> Compiler) using the JJTree extension to create an Abstract Syntax Tree
(AST)
> which may subsequently be traversed (repeatedly if desired) by a tree
> walker. The tree walker is implemented using the visitor design pattern.
> This allows the parsing logic to be separated from the actions performed
on
> the resultant AST. For example there are two visitors that come with
> Velocity: the first is a simple implementation that produces a visual tree
> of the syntax and nothing more, mostly used for debugging; the second is
the
> visitor that actually generates output from user defined values and
> introspection.
>
> The benefit of using a parser like this is that we have solved a
> lot of the parsing issues that WebMacro has such as not being able to
> properly handle JavaScript within the template without having to do a lot
of
> hacks to make it work as well as things like not having to escape $
> characters. Other benefits include things like being able to report line
> numbers as well as expected tokens on parser errors much like javac (which
> also uses JavaCC) reports information when your Java code does not
compile.
> We also hope to be able to eventually produce compiled templates for both
> speed and security reasons. We feel that by using a well established
parser,
> we can offer a more reliable and feature complete solution.
>
> Velocity is available under the ASF license instead of the GPL and/or SPL
> license. The Turbine <http://java.apache.org/turbine/> project currently
> depends on WebMacro and thus cannot be distributed from the Apache.org
> website as a released version because of the GPL and/or SPL license
> restrictions. Velocity will become the default template engine for
Turbine.
>
> Velocity is available on a stable platform with full mailing list and
> multiple developer support. In the past, we have had issues with WebMacro
> CVS and mailing lists not being reliable as well as not having simple
> features like CVS commit messages going to a mailing list. We feel that by
> having Velocity available under a larger and more established collective
> that we will be able to accomplish more.
>
> Language differences between Velocity and WM are very small. In a lot of
> cases, Velocity will be a drop in replacement for WM. We will provide
> documentation for the differences between the two on the website soon.
>
> Advantages of Velocity
>
> For those of you who are looking for an alternative to JSP (JSP sucks!
> <smile>) and other page template engines, Velocity offers several
> advantages. The design of the simple template language enforces an MVC
style
> of development, it is impossible to embed Java code within your template.
> This is possible to do with JSP, but is not the primary focus and is often
> easily abused.
>
> Velocity is also a much smaller code base and simpler implementation.
There
> is no need to have a javac compiler installed to compile your templates
into
> bytecode. In fact, when we add compiled templates to Velocity, we will
will
> not require a javac compiler because we can write out bytecode ourselves.
>
> Velocity is developed in a 100% open source fashion with all discussion
and
> development happening on public mailing lists. JSP is only 50% open as the
> specifications are developed primarily behind closed doors in the Java
> Community Process (JCP).
>
> Velocity will be tightly integrated into the Turbine web application
> framework and all direct WebMacro support will be removed in order to
comply
> with the license restrictions (it will be up to others to provide outside
> support for WebMacro if they choose to continue using it). This framework
> provides a large collection of very useful code for developing web
> applications that has been donated by over 30 developers now. Code
includes
> an Object Relational abstraction package, database connection pools. If
you
> are developing a web application, definitely take a look at Turbine.
> <http://java.apache.org/turbine/>
>
> Like WebMacro, Velocity can be used for more than just websites and web
> applications. The engine can be called anywhere in your Java code to
process
> the template files. For instance, it can be used as a template engine for
> generating customized email messages with the help of the JavaMail API's.
>
> Status of Velocity
>
> It is around 70% complete. It supports most of the current set of language
> rules that WebMacro does including most of its introspection features.
> Documentation is still needed, although if you are familiar with WebMacro
> you will be familiar with Velocity. It is missing template caching and the
> ability to compile templates. We expect to have these features implemented
> shortly. Other compatibility issues will also be resolved as quickly as
> possible.
>
> If you are interested in seeing (and helping!) the future of template
> engines progress, then please subscribe to the mailing lists and
contribute
> to the project.
>
> <http://jakarta.apache.org/velocity/>
>
> thanks,
>
> -The Velocity Team
>
>
>
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