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Posted to dev@cocoon.apache.org by Neeme Praks <ne...@apache.org> on 2007/01/31 15:49:42 UTC
OSGi blocks development?
Hi,
In spring of 2006 there was some heavy discussion going on about
implementing OSGi based blocks system and refactoring things to use
Spring container instead of ECM.
After that, things seem to have become very quiet.
Last e-mail I see on the list is about the OSGi subject is from the
beginning of September, 2006. After that - total silence.
JIRA is just as quiet:
http://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/COCOON-1826
http://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/COCOON-1827
http://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/COCOON-1829
http://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/COCOON-1830
Can someone shed some light on the status of OSGi integration in Cocoon?
Rgds,
Neeme
Re: OSGi blocks development?
Posted by Daniel Fagerstrom <da...@nada.kth.se>.
Neeme Praks skrev:
>
> Daniel Fagerstrom wrote:
>>
>> Although there are many people involved in Cocoon we are just a few
>> who work on the core and basic infrastructure. And we where spreading
>> ourselves to thin in the project by both working on moving to Spring,
>> moving to Maven and using OSGi at the same time. So we decided to
>> focus on Spring, Maven and getting a release of 2.2 before continuing
>> the work on moving to OSGi.
>>
>> Also it was a quite large work to integrate Spring and OSGi. And when
>> we saw that a project doing that started within the Spring community
>> with some OSGi heavyweights involved, it seemed like a better idea to
>> stop our own development in that area and either join them or being
>> lazy and wait for them to deliver something ;)
>>
>> It would be much simpler to move Cocoon to OSGi today as we have
>> simplified the core considerably and there is much more support for
>> using OSGi in enterprise software projects now.
>
> Fair enough, makes sense. :-)
>
>> So what is your interest in it? Would you like to use a OSGi based
>> Cocoon or do you feel that it would be fun working on creating it :)
>
> My main interest is in using it :-)
> And I know too little of Cocoon 2.2 to help you in the process - I would
> dig deeper but unfortunately I don't have time for this right now. I
> need it for my day job and I need something that works now :-|
>
> My requirements:
> * component based development with packaging (JAR up components) - here
> I mainly mean UI components or "web application features"
We already have that in 2.2. OSGi will give us classloader isolation and
more dynamism. But besides that, most of what was promised for blocks
is already in place.
> * easy i18n and l10n
Yes.
> * fairly easy skinnability, output customization for different clients
> (application logic stays the same but design and even links can change)
Yes.
> * support for rich clients (HTML+AJAX) and "thin clients" (WML and
> XHTML Basic)
Yes.
> * template and java logic separation
Yes.
> So far I've looked at:
> * Cocoon blocks with OSGi - looks promising, but will arrive too late
> for me
> * Old-style cocoon blocks? - haven't looked in there yet.
> * JSF (Shale, Seam, etc) - looks interesting, but seems to be too
> "heavy" and complex.
> * Wicket and Pax Wicket for OSGi support - I need to look deeper in
> this, looks most promising right now
> * RIFE - lots of interesting ideas, but they try to reinvent too many
> things, IMO. And I don't like their static service access style.
> * Spring MVC with Web Flow - my impression is that it is not easy to do
> COP with it.
All of the above framworks are probably good choices. What is best
depends a lot on what kind of applications you are going to build and
what kind of web architecture stile you prefer.
Cocoon 2.2 is much easier to mix and match with other frameworks than
earlier versions. It is much more modular and uses Spring and servlet
technology in a fairly standard way.
> Maybe you have a pointer to a good Cocoon 2.2 introduction (especially
> the blocks support and how does Spring help you with all this)?
> Or just checkout from SVN and build the docs?
You can find some docs about how to get started with 2.2 here
http://cocoon.zones.apache.org/dev-docs/. Cocoon 2.2 is
fairly back compatible, so mots of the 2.1 docs still holds. You can
find an overview of the blocks architecture here
http://wiki.apache.org/cocoon-data/attachments/GT2006Notes/attachments/12-CocoonBlocks.pdf.
There is a lot of work left to do on the 2.2 docs however :/
> Last time I checked Cocoon sources was in 2.0.x series and then it was
> just too much to wrap my head around. As I understand, things have
> gotten a lot modular around here with blocks, but I'm still a bit wary
> to look into Cocoon SVN repo. :-P
Taking a look at cocoon-webapp and some blocks samples is a good idea
but you don't need to all the code to get going ;)
/Daniel
Re: OSGi blocks development?
Posted by Neeme Praks <ne...@apache.org>.
Daniel Fagerstrom wrote:
>
> Although there are many people involved in Cocoon we are just a few who
> work on the core and basic infrastructure. And we where spreading
> ourselves to thin in the project by both working on moving to Spring,
> moving to Maven and using OSGi at the same time. So we decided to focus
> on Spring, Maven and getting a release of 2.2 before continuing the work
> on moving to OSGi.
>
> Also it was a quite large work to integrate Spring and OSGi. And when we
> saw that a project doing that started within the Spring community with
> some OSGi heavyweights involved, it seemed like a better idea to stop
> our own development in that area and either join them or being lazy and
> wait for them to deliver something ;)
>
> It would be much simpler to move Cocoon to OSGi today as we have
> simplified the core considerably and there is much more support for
> using OSGi in enterprise software projects now.
Fair enough, makes sense. :-)
> So what is your interest in it? Would you like to use a OSGi based
> Cocoon or do you feel that it would be fun working on creating it :)
My main interest is in using it :-)
And I know too little of Cocoon 2.2 to help you in the process - I would
dig deeper but unfortunately I don't have time for this right now. I
need it for my day job and I need something that works now :-|
My requirements:
* component based development with packaging (JAR up components) -
here I mainly mean UI components or "web application features"
* easy i18n and l10n
* fairly easy skinnability, output customization for different clients
(application logic stays the same but design and even links can change)
* support for rich clients (HTML+AJAX) and "thin clients" (WML and
XHTML Basic)
* template and java logic separation
So far I've looked at:
* Cocoon blocks with OSGi - looks promising, but will arrive too late
for me
* Old-style cocoon blocks? - haven't looked in there yet.
* JSF (Shale, Seam, etc) - looks interesting, but seems to be too
"heavy" and complex.
* Wicket and Pax Wicket for OSGi support - I need to look deeper in
this, looks most promising right now
* RIFE - lots of interesting ideas, but they try to reinvent too many
things, IMO. And I don't like their static service access style.
* Spring MVC with Web Flow - my impression is that it is not easy to
do COP with it.
Maybe you have a pointer to a good Cocoon 2.2 introduction (especially
the blocks support and how does Spring help you with all this)?
Or just checkout from SVN and build the docs?
Last time I checked Cocoon sources was in 2.0.x series and then it was
just too much to wrap my head around. As I understand, things have
gotten a lot modular around here with blocks, but I'm still a bit wary
to look into Cocoon SVN repo. :-P
Rgds,
Neeme
Re: OSGi blocks development?
Posted by Ralph Goers <Ra...@dslextreme.com>.
You should probably add this to an FAQ somewhere.
Daniel Fagerstrom wrote:
> Neeme Praks skrev:
>> Hi,
>>
>> In spring of 2006 there was some heavy discussion going on about
>> implementing OSGi based blocks system and refactoring things to use
>> Spring container instead of ECM.
>>
>> After that, things seem to have become very quiet.
>> Last e-mail I see on the list is about the OSGi subject is from the
>> beginning of September, 2006. After that - total silence.
>>
>> JIRA is just as quiet:
>> http://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/COCOON-1826
>> http://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/COCOON-1827
>> http://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/COCOON-1829
>> http://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/COCOON-1830
>>
>> Can someone shed some light on the status of OSGi integration in Cocoon?
>
> Although there are many people involved in Cocoon we are just a few
> who work on the core and basic infrastructure. And we where spreading
> ourselves to thin in the project by both working on moving to Spring,
> moving to Maven and using OSGi at the same time. So we decided to
> focus on Spring, Maven and getting a release of 2.2 before continuing
> the work on moving to OSGi.
>
> Also it was a quite large work to integrate Spring and OSGi. And when
> we saw that a project doing that started within the Spring community
> with some OSGi heavyweights involved, it seemed like a better idea to
> stop our own development in that area and either join them or being
> lazy and wait for them to deliver something ;)
>
> It would be much simpler to move Cocoon to OSGi today as we have
> simplified the core considerably and there is much more support for
> using OSGi in enterprise software projects now.
>
> So what is your interest in it? Would you like to use a OSGi based
> Cocoon or do you feel that it would be fun working on creating it :)
>
> /Daniel
Re: OSGi blocks development?
Posted by Niclas Hedhman <ni...@hedhman.org>.
On Thursday 01 February 2007 04:16, Daniel Fagerstrom wrote:
> Also it was a quite large work to integrate Spring and OSGi. And when we
> saw that a project doing that started within the Spring community with
> some OSGi heavyweights involved, it seemed like a better idea to stop
> our own development in that area and either join them or being lazy and
> wait for them to deliver something ;)
I just came back from the initial kick-off meeting of the Enterprise Expert
Group in the OSGi Alliance.
One of the interesting things are that Spring will get a central focus in OSGi
Enterprise, and many of the Spring OSGi guys (Adrian Coyler for instance) is
part of the EEG. I expect a strong convergence, so that not only will Spring
become a first class citizen in OSGi, but also vice versa.
So, from a Cocoon perspective, I think it is a wise choice to continue the
Springification and just keep an eye on the features that the Spring OSGi
team are introducing features from the OSGi side of the fence, such as
dynamicity and peer-classloaders. End of the day, I don't think Cocoon will
need to do a lot for full OSGi support.
Cheers
Niclas
Re: OSGi blocks development?
Posted by Daniel Fagerstrom <da...@nada.kth.se>.
Neeme Praks skrev:
> Hi,
>
> In spring of 2006 there was some heavy discussion going on about
> implementing OSGi based blocks system and refactoring things to use
> Spring container instead of ECM.
>
> After that, things seem to have become very quiet.
> Last e-mail I see on the list is about the OSGi subject is from the
> beginning of September, 2006. After that - total silence.
>
> JIRA is just as quiet:
> http://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/COCOON-1826
> http://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/COCOON-1827
> http://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/COCOON-1829
> http://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/COCOON-1830
>
> Can someone shed some light on the status of OSGi integration in Cocoon?
Although there are many people involved in Cocoon we are just a few who
work on the core and basic infrastructure. And we where spreading
ourselves to thin in the project by both working on moving to Spring,
moving to Maven and using OSGi at the same time. So we decided to focus
on Spring, Maven and getting a release of 2.2 before continuing the work
on moving to OSGi.
Also it was a quite large work to integrate Spring and OSGi. And when we
saw that a project doing that started within the Spring community with
some OSGi heavyweights involved, it seemed like a better idea to stop
our own development in that area and either join them or being lazy and
wait for them to deliver something ;)
It would be much simpler to move Cocoon to OSGi today as we have
simplified the core considerably and there is much more support for
using OSGi in enterprise software projects now.
So what is your interest in it? Would you like to use a OSGi based
Cocoon or do you feel that it would be fun working on creating it :)
/Daniel