On Sunday 29 February 2004 05:20, Thai Lam wrote:
> This is a summation of our project, it is quite simple. There is a
> database in SQL that we'll be getting, putting, modifying, and deleting
> entries. There will be some field comparisons so that we can create
> "alerts" and present them on the site.

I am sure Aaron will manage to answer your concrete questions, but I thought I 
give a little bit a generic advice.

Separation of Concerns
======================
You have probably seen this slogan around Avalon, just about around every 
corner. In your specific case, that means that you should break down the 
application in components that each do ONE THING and does that VERY WELL.

This is the challenge. 
You probably end up with one component that handles your Entry Management, 
another that evaluates the Alerts, yet another that sends messages.
You will have components that can aggregate information for presentation, and 
possibly components to support the JSP side of things (or better yet, skip 
JSP altogether).

As for UI and "Web Application"... Try not to think of it as a web application 
at all. Assume that there are many ways to view the application, meaning no 
logic goes into the presentation layer.


Separation of Interface and Implementation
==========================================
When you do the above, don't get bogged down by "implementation details". 
Design the interfaces first, and place them into a separate package.
Later, add a little bit of implementation as you go along, perhaps even a 
"mock implementation", to get going quickly, especially if you are a team who 
would depend on each other's work.


Container Choice
================
Your timing is somewhat "unfortunate", as Merlin with servlet support is not 
released yet, but exist in the CVS HEAD.
Fortress is a somewhat more light-weight container, but you will not end up 
with a robust application, and it may require some more "container control"  
on your behalf.
Also, you will probably receive a bit more and/or faster help with Merlin than 
you would with Fortress, but that is offseted by the fact that you probably 
will need more help with Merlin.
OTOH, from a educational point of view, Merlin is probably going to teach you 
much more, especially if you (maybe later) start taking a look at its 
internals.
Finally, you can write your own dedicated mini-container, with or without some 
of the support classes in Framework, Repository, Meta and Merlin. I wouldn't 
recommend it though, although at first it can look very simple, you soon get 
bogged down with container issues, instead of focusing on the task at hand.


Cheers
Niclas
-- 
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