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Posted to dev@avalon.apache.org by Berin Loritsch <bl...@apache.org> on 2001/11/15 20:33:14 UTC
[RT] Avalon Developer Tools
It would be handy to have some developer tools that don't cost an
arm and a leg. My question is first, "Does anyone know if these tools
exist?", and second, "If not, are we interested in a subproject to
house them?". Until we upgrade, we can use the Avalonia project that
we have at SourceForge to handle these things.
1) Database definition managment. It would be Really Great (TM) to
have a tool that took an XML representation of a group of tables
and views, and spat out the DB specific SQL commands to generate
the database. It would be even better if this tool could be
embedded in ANT! The other side of the tool would be the GUI that
you used to create the XML markup. Another Really Great (TM) thing
would be to handle the initial values that needed to be inserted
into the database to make it useable.
2) Configuration GUI. Let's face it, building a configuration file
by hand is only enjoyable by people who know what they are doing.
For the rest of us, we need a GUI to help out. One particular
utility we can use is Xybrix (http://jbrix.org/kits/xybrix). It
takes XForms (or a close proximation) and generates the GUI
dynamically. That way, components can have the XForms definition
with them and Xybrix can generate the entry for it.
3) Component Server. When you want to really make something a bit
easier to maintain, you want your tools to manage the monitoring
and notifications of updates. That way you can always have the
most current version of a Component. This may work better for
Blocks, but it's an idea we had a long time ago (hense the
blockinfo descriptor files, etc.)
To me, the first one is the most important--esp. since the last
couple of days has been spent tediously taking an Informix schema
dump, and massaging the output to work with PostgeSQL. PAINFUL
AND BEST TO BE AVOIDED IF POSSIBLE. Commercial tools that manage
all that for you are more than $1000 USD, and many times are quite
clunky to use.
--
"Those who would trade liberty for
temporary security deserve neither"
- Benjamin Franklin
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Re: [RT] Avalon Developer Tools
Posted by Peter Royal <pr...@managingpartners.com>.
On Thursday 15 November 2001 02:33 pm, you wrote:
> 1) Database definition managment. It would be Really Great (TM) to
> have a tool that took an XML representation of a group of tables
> and views, and spat out the DB specific SQL commands to generate
> the database. It would be even better if this tool could be
> embedded in ANT! The other side of the tool would be the GUI that
> you used to create the XML markup. Another Really Great (TM) thing
> would be to handle the initial values that needed to be inserted
> into the database to make it useable.
I have developed something akin to this for my current project.
We have an object model to represent our business domain and we use a
relational database for storage. There is an XML document that describes each
object and which DB field/table it corresponds to. When the system starts up
each object is turned into a Definition object, and I have a
StorageIntegrityChecker that can take that Definition and verify that the
table, pk, and all columns exist. I have a base class for all SQL statement
generation and I've extended that for the bastardized SQL our current DB
needs (pervasive. legacy). The StorageIntegrityChecker is currently
implemented as phoenix Block.
If the group wants, I'm willing to ask management here if they would consider
donating the StorageIntegrityChecker piece to the ASF to use as a starting
base for what you describe above. Naturally I would want to keep it
compatible with what my needs are here so it can continue to be of use to me
in addition to the rest of the community. Since the Definition that the block
takes is just an interface, it won't be hard to create alternate
implementations for different needs.
-pete
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RE: [RT] Avalon Developer Tools
Posted by Gerhard Froehlich <g-...@gmx.de>.
Salü Peter,
>JMX JMX JMX ;)
>
>Write an agent for this and you are all good to go. I will talk more of this
>soon when I have time to fully do a brain dump.
I just downloaded the JMX Api Spec. But I didn't really
get the point of this stuff. How can you use this stuff.
Cheers
Gerhard
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Re: [RT] Avalon Developer Tools
Posted by Peter Donald <do...@apache.org>.
On Fri, 16 Nov 2001 06:33, Berin Loritsch wrote:
> It would be handy to have some developer tools that don't cost an
> arm and a leg. My question is first, "Does anyone know if these tools
> exist?", and second, "If not, are we interested in a subproject to
> house them?". Until we upgrade, we can use the Avalonia project that
> we have at SourceForge to handle these things.
>
> 1) Database definition managment. It would be Really Great (TM) to
> have a tool that took an XML representation of a group of tables
> and views, and spat out the DB specific SQL commands to generate
> the database. It would be even better if this tool could be
> embedded in ANT! The other side of the tool would be the GUI that
> you used to create the XML markup. Another Really Great (TM) thing
> would be to handle the initial values that needed to be inserted
> into the database to make it useable.
Turbines Torque sounds perfect for this job! It is really really kool.
It is/was going through a bit of an evolution a while back but other than
that I loved it. It was basically a OR-Mapping tool combined with a useful
set of ant tasks. Highly recomended.
I can't remember if it does "dump data to xml" off hand (I am fairly sure it
dumps schema to xml) but it should not be hard to do if it doesn'.t
> 2) Configuration GUI. Let's face it, building a configuration file
> by hand is only enjoyable by people who know what they are doing.
> For the rest of us, we need a GUI to help out. One particular
> utility we can use is Xybrix (http://jbrix.org/kits/xybrix). It
> takes XForms (or a close proximation) and generates the GUI
> dynamically. That way, components can have the XForms definition
> with them and Xybrix can generate the entry for it.
Sounds interesting - haven't looked at it before. Another option is to define
component configuration using Schema/DTD and use a tool like Merlot to edit
the config. There is also a few tools around like that for editing EJB
descriptors that we should be able to write different plugins for for Blocks
etc.
IIRC both the OpenEJB and JBoss project have different tools. (OpenEJB's jedi
was hosted at sourceforge IIRC under a MIT license)
> 3) Component Server. When you want to really make something a bit
> easier to maintain, you want your tools to manage the monitoring
> and notifications of updates. That way you can always have the
> most current version of a Component. This may work better for
> Blocks, but it's an idea we had a long time ago (hense the
> blockinfo descriptor files, etc.)
JMX JMX JMX ;)
Write an agent for this and you are all good to go. I will talk more of this
soon when I have time to fully do a brain dump.
--
Cheers,
Pete
--------------------------------------------
Sorry, I forgot to take my medication today.
--------------------------------------------
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Re: [RT] Avalon Developer Tools
Posted by Jason van Zyl <jv...@zenplex.com>.
On 11/15/01 2:33 PM, "Berin Loritsch" <bl...@apache.org> wrote:
>
> 2) Configuration GUI. Let's face it, building a configuration file
> by hand is only enjoyable by people who know what they are doing.
> For the rest of us, we need a GUI to help out. One particular
> utility we can use is Xybrix (http://jbrix.org/kits/xybrix). It
> takes XForms (or a close proximation) and generates the GUI
> dynamically. That way, components can have the XForms definition
> with them and Xybrix can generate the entry for it.
I have only used this package slightly but was nice to work with:
http://www.merlotxml.org/
--
jvz.
Jason van Zyl
http://tambora.zenplex.org
http://jakarta.apache.org/turbine
http://jakarta.apache.org/velocity
http://jakarta.apache.org/alexandria
http://jakarta.apache.org/commons
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RE: [RT] Avalon Developer Tools
Posted by Bernard D'Have <bd...@wanadoo.be>.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Berin Loritsch [mailto:bloritsch@apache.org]
> Sent: Thursday, 15 November, 2001 20:33
> To: avalon-dev@jakarta.apache.org
> Subject: [RT] Avalon Developer Tools
>
>
> It would be handy to have some developer tools that don't cost an
> arm and a leg. My question is first, "Does anyone know if these tools
> exist?", and second, "If not, are we interested in a subproject to
> house them?". Until we upgrade, we can use the Avalonia project that
> we have at SourceForge to handle these things.
>
> 1) Database definition managment. It would be Really Great (TM) to
> have a tool that took an XML representation of a group of tables
> and views, and spat out the DB specific SQL commands to generate
> the database. It would be even better if this tool could be
> embedded in ANT! The other side of the tool would be the GUI that
> you used to create the XML markup. Another Really Great (TM) thing
> would be to handle the initial values that needed to be inserted
> into the database to make it useable.
there is a sub-project of jakarta-turbine for that: Torque
Bernard
>
> 2) Configuration GUI. Let's face it, building a configuration file
> by hand is only enjoyable by people who know what they are doing.
> For the rest of us, we need a GUI to help out. One particular
> utility we can use is Xybrix (http://jbrix.org/kits/xybrix). It
> takes XForms (or a close proximation) and generates the GUI
> dynamically. That way, components can have the XForms definition
> with them and Xybrix can generate the entry for it.
>
> 3) Component Server. When you want to really make something a bit
> easier to maintain, you want your tools to manage the monitoring
> and notifications of updates. That way you can always have the
> most current version of a Component. This may work better for
> Blocks, but it's an idea we had a long time ago (hense the
> blockinfo descriptor files, etc.)
>
> To me, the first one is the most important--esp. since the last
> couple of days has been spent tediously taking an Informix schema
> dump, and massaging the output to work with PostgeSQL. PAINFUL
> AND BEST TO BE AVOIDED IF POSSIBLE. Commercial tools that manage
> all that for you are more than $1000 USD, and many times are quite
> clunky to use.
>
> --
>
> "Those who would trade liberty for
> temporary security deserve neither"
> - Benjamin Franklin
>
>
> --
> To unsubscribe, e-mail:
<ma...@jakarta.apache.org>
For additional commands, e-mail: <ma...@jakarta.apache.org>
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Re: [RT] Avalon Developer Tools
Posted by Jason van Zyl <jv...@zenplex.com>.
On 11/15/01 3:13 PM, "Jason van Zyl" <jv...@zenplex.com> wrote:
> On 11/15/01 3:01 PM, "Peter Royal" <pr...@managingpartners.com> wrote:
>
>> On Thursday 15 November 2001 02:57 pm, you wrote:
>>> The Torque code has been decoupled from Turbine and Martin Poeschl and
>>> myself are currently writing a testbed to find the problems that are still
>>> present in the code. I'm working on making the connection pool pluggable
>>> and we are moving toward using the design of Scott Ambler to make Torque a
>>> general persistence layer.
>>>
>>> What little documentation there is can be found here:
>>>
>>> http://jakarta.apache.org/turbine/torque
>>
>> damn. i wish i had found this before i wrote my own :)
>
> Your tool might work better for your situation. Torque at the moment is very
> datamodel-centric and is really useful for those who are used to working
> from the datamodel but not ideal for people (like myself) who are accustomed
> to working with an object model first.
>
> Torque creates an object model which is really a thin veneer over top of a
> datamodel. So what we provide now is a table mapping to a single object,
> this is rarely complete enough a solution in the real world but is fine if
> you have complete control over a project. I am trying to work in the designs
> of Scott Ambler to make Torque a general persistence layer for an object
> model. For example an application may consist of attributes retrieved from
^^^
That's application object, not application
> any number of different tables (possibly in different databases), an XML
> source or any other location. Scott Ambler's design allows for this, as well
> as decoupling the datamodel completely from the object model so that changes
> in the way your data is stored does not affect application programmers.
> Torque is not there yet but I'm hoping development will move along briskly
> once the testbed is complete.
>
>> -pete
--
jvz.
Jason van Zyl
http://tambora.zenplex.org
http://jakarta.apache.org/turbine
http://jakarta.apache.org/velocity
http://jakarta.apache.org/alexandria
http://jakarta.apache.org/commons
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Re: [RT] Avalon Developer Tools
Posted by Jason van Zyl <jv...@zenplex.com>.
On 11/15/01 3:01 PM, "Peter Royal" <pr...@managingpartners.com> wrote:
> On Thursday 15 November 2001 02:57 pm, you wrote:
>> The Torque code has been decoupled from Turbine and Martin Poeschl and
>> myself are currently writing a testbed to find the problems that are still
>> present in the code. I'm working on making the connection pool pluggable
>> and we are moving toward using the design of Scott Ambler to make Torque a
>> general persistence layer.
>>
>> What little documentation there is can be found here:
>>
>> http://jakarta.apache.org/turbine/torque
>
> damn. i wish i had found this before i wrote my own :)
Your tool might work better for your situation. Torque at the moment is very
datamodel-centric and is really useful for those who are used to working
from the datamodel but not ideal for people (like myself) who are accustomed
to working with an object model first.
Torque creates an object model which is really a thin veneer over top of a
datamodel. So what we provide now is a table mapping to a single object,
this is rarely complete enough a solution in the real world but is fine if
you have complete control over a project. I am trying to work in the designs
of Scott Ambler to make Torque a general persistence layer for an object
model. For example an application may consist of attributes retrieved from
any number of different tables (possibly in different databases), an XML
source or any other location. Scott Ambler's design allows for this, as well
as decoupling the datamodel completely from the object model so that changes
in the way your data is stored does not affect application programmers.
Torque is not there yet but I'm hoping development will move along briskly
once the testbed is complete.
> -pete
--
jvz.
Jason van Zyl
http://tambora.zenplex.org
http://jakarta.apache.org/turbine
http://jakarta.apache.org/velocity
http://jakarta.apache.org/alexandria
http://jakarta.apache.org/commons
--
To unsubscribe, e-mail: <ma...@jakarta.apache.org>
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Re: [RT] Avalon Developer Tools
Posted by Peter Royal <pr...@managingpartners.com>.
On Thursday 15 November 2001 02:57 pm, you wrote:
> The Torque code has been decoupled from Turbine and Martin Poeschl and
> myself are currently writing a testbed to find the problems that are still
> present in the code. I'm working on making the connection pool pluggable
> and we are moving toward using the design of Scott Ambler to make Torque a
> general persistence layer.
>
> What little documentation there is can be found here:
>
> http://jakarta.apache.org/turbine/torque
damn. i wish i had found this before i wrote my own :)
-pete
--
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Re: [RT] Avalon Developer Tools
Posted by Jason van Zyl <jv...@zenplex.com>.
On 11/15/01 2:33 PM, "Berin Loritsch" <bl...@apache.org> wrote:
> It would be handy to have some developer tools that don't cost an
> arm and a leg. My question is first, "Does anyone know if these tools
> exist?", and second, "If not, are we interested in a subproject to
> house them?". Until we upgrade, we can use the Avalonia project that
> we have at SourceForge to handle these things.
>
> 1) Database definition managment. It would be Really Great (TM) to
> have a tool that took an XML representation of a group of tables
> and views, and spat out the DB specific SQL commands to generate
> the database. It would be even better if this tool could be
> embedded in ANT! The other side of the tool would be the GUI that
> you used to create the XML markup. Another Really Great (TM) thing
> would be to handle the initial values that needed to be inserted
> into the database to make it useable.
>
The Torque code has been decoupled from Turbine and Martin Poeschl and
myself are currently writing a testbed to find the problems that are still
present in the code. I'm working on making the connection pool pluggable and
we are moving toward using the design of Scott Ambler to make Torque a
general persistence layer.
What little documentation there is can be found here:
http://jakarta.apache.org/turbine/torque
--
jvz.
Jason van Zyl
http://tambora.zenplex.org
http://jakarta.apache.org/turbine
http://jakarta.apache.org/velocity
http://jakarta.apache.org/alexandria
http://jakarta.apache.org/commons
--
To unsubscribe, e-mail: <ma...@jakarta.apache.org>
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