grails plugin

[Joe Bohn <jo...@earthlink.net>]

I started some preliminary work on a grails plugin that could be used to 
collect all of the grails dependencies so that they can be shared. 
Along with this we would need to provide a mechanism to generate a war 
file in grails which does not contain any of the common elements.  I'd 
like to check in what I have thus far.  There is only one catch.  Some 
of the dependencies are Hibernate (LGPL).  I've updated my poms with a 
scope of provided for the hibernate dependencies.  Is that sufficient so 
that I can check the plugin into our SVN without any legal issues if 
somebody installs it?

I'm also interested in additional thoughts on how to deal with the 
hibernate dependencies.  Should I consider using prerequisite instead of 
dependency so that they must be installed (I'm not yet sure if a grails 
application will work without hibernate but I suspect that it should)?

Comments appreciated.  I'd really like to get this checked in under 
https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/geronimo/plugins so it doesn't get lost 
even if it isn't quite ready for prime-time yet.

Joe

Re: grails plugin

[David Jencks <da...@yahoo.com>]

On Nov 14, 2008, at 2:43 PM, Joe Bohn wrote:

> I started some preliminary work on a grails plugin that could be  
> used to collect all of the grails dependencies so that they can be  
> shared. Along with this we would need to provide a mechanism to  
> generate a war file in grails which does not contain any of the  
> common elements.  I'd like to check in what I have thus far.  There  
> is only one catch.  Some of the dependencies are Hibernate (LGPL).   
> I've updated my poms with a scope of provided for the hibernate  
> dependencies.  Is that sufficient so that I can check the plugin  
> into our SVN without any legal issues if somebody installs it?

I think so but get confused by the legal issues.

>
>
> I'm also interested in additional thoughts on how to deal with the  
> hibernate dependencies.  Should I consider using prerequisite  
> instead of dependency so that they must be installed (I'm not yet  
> sure if a grails application will work without hibernate but I  
> suspect that it should)?

I think this is the most plausible use of prerequisites that anyone  
has suggested so far.

>
>
> Comments appreciated.  I'd really like to get this checked in under https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/geronimo/plugins 
>  so it doesn't get lost even if it isn't quite ready for prime-time  
> yet.

That's fine with me.... sandbox would also be ok if you foresee  
problems getting it done but I'd prefer plugins.

Does grails use proprietary hibernate features not available in jpa or  
are they just stuck on a particular dependency for no particular reason?

thanks
david jencks

>
>
> Joe

Re: grails plugin

[Jason Dillon <ja...@gmail.com>]

On Nov 15, 2008, at 11:26 PM, Joe Bohn wrote:
> Jason Dillon wrote:
>> Just curios why one would even bother with this?  Seems that this  
>> would only be useful when someone deploys more than one grails- 
>> based app into the sever... do folks even do that?  And what if the  
>> 2 apps evolve differently and then need different versions of  
>> grails/groovy?
>
> Yes, It's only useful if deploying more than one grails web app.  My  
> thinking was that if a user has decided to work in a grails model  
> the chances are probably good they'll be working multiple projects  
> using the same model. My guess is that a user won't be maintaining  
> multiple applications on multiple versions of grails (and deploying  
> them to the same server) ... but I guess that is a possibility.  We  
> would need to release a new version of the plugin for a new release  
> of grails.

Well, I guess it can't hurt to provide this for folks... just not sure  
the effort is worth it at the moment, but I could be wrong.


>> And then the need of tools to take a grails war and turn it into a  
>> geronimo grails war... seems like too much work for little gain...  
>> and in some respect some loss.
>
> Yes, there is some work to generate the geronimo grails war.  I  
> discovered an easy way to remove all of the external dependencies  
> using a simple configuration change in the grails workspace.   
> However, the grails jars themselves are always included in the war.   
> So far the only way that I've been able to remove those too is by  
> altering the war.groovy script.  So some more work is needed here.   
> Also, there is not yet a grails release that is distributing maven  
> artifacts (but hopefully 1.1 will as they have snapshots deployed  
> for this release).

I suppose you could use TrueZIP to just delete them from the war, or  
with some Ant muck to unwar, delete, rewar.


>> How big are the dependencies anyways?
>
> About 18MB.

Yikes. :-\

--jason

Re: grails plugin

[Joe Bohn <jo...@earthlink.net>]

Jason Dillon wrote:
> Just curios why one would even bother with this?  Seems that this would 
> only be useful when someone deploys more than one grails-based app into 
> the sever... do folks even do that?  And what if the 2 apps evolve 
> differently and then need different versions of grails/groovy?

Yes, It's only useful if deploying more than one grails web app.  My 
thinking was that if a user has decided to work in a grails model the 
chances are probably good they'll be working multiple projects using the 
same model. My guess is that a user won't be maintaining multiple 
applications on multiple versions of grails (and deploying them to the 
same server) ... but I guess that is a possibility.  We would need to 
release a new version of the plugin for a new release of grails.


> 
> And then the need of tools to take a grails war and turn it into a 
> geronimo grails war... seems like too much work for little gain... and 
> in some respect some loss.

Yes, there is some work to generate the geronimo grails war.  I 
discovered an easy way to remove all of the external dependencies using 
a simple configuration change in the grails workspace.  However, the 
grails jars themselves are always included in the war.  So far the only 
way that I've been able to remove those too is by altering the 
war.groovy script.  So some more work is needed here.  Also, there is 
not yet a grails release that is distributing maven artifacts (but 
hopefully 1.1 will as they have snapshots deployed for this release).

> 
> How big are the dependencies anyways?

About 18MB.

> 
> --jason
> 
> 
> On Nov 15, 2008, at 5:43 AM, Joe Bohn wrote:
> 
>> I started some preliminary work on a grails plugin that could be used 
>> to collect all of the grails dependencies so that they can be shared. 
>> Along with this we would need to provide a mechanism to generate a war 
>> file in grails which does not contain any of the common elements.  I'd 
>> like to check in what I have thus far.  There is only one catch.  Some 
>> of the dependencies are Hibernate (LGPL).  I've updated my poms with a 
>> scope of provided for the hibernate dependencies.  Is that sufficient 
>> so that I can check the plugin into our SVN without any legal issues 
>> if somebody installs it?
>>
>> I'm also interested in additional thoughts on how to deal with the 
>> hibernate dependencies.  Should I consider using prerequisite instead 
>> of dependency so that they must be installed (I'm not yet sure if a 
>> grails application will work without hibernate but I suspect that it 
>> should)?
>>
>> Comments appreciated.  I'd really like to get this checked in under 
>> https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/geronimo/plugins so it doesn't get 
>> lost even if it isn't quite ready for prime-time yet.
>>
>> Joe
> 
> 

Re: grails plugin

[Jason Dillon <ja...@gmail.com>]

Just curios why one would even bother with this?  Seems that this  
would only be useful when someone deploys more than one grails-based  
app into the sever... do folks even do that?  And what if the 2 apps  
evolve differently and then need different versions of grails/groovy?

And then the need of tools to take a grails war and turn it into a  
geronimo grails war... seems like too much work for little gain... and  
in some respect some loss.

How big are the dependencies anyways?

--jason


On Nov 15, 2008, at 5:43 AM, Joe Bohn wrote:

> I started some preliminary work on a grails plugin that could be  
> used to collect all of the grails dependencies so that they can be  
> shared. Along with this we would need to provide a mechanism to  
> generate a war file in grails which does not contain any of the  
> common elements.  I'd like to check in what I have thus far.  There  
> is only one catch.  Some of the dependencies are Hibernate (LGPL).   
> I've updated my poms with a scope of provided for the hibernate  
> dependencies.  Is that sufficient so that I can check the plugin  
> into our SVN without any legal issues if somebody installs it?
>
> I'm also interested in additional thoughts on how to deal with the  
> hibernate dependencies.  Should I consider using prerequisite  
> instead of dependency so that they must be installed (I'm not yet  
> sure if a grails application will work without hibernate but I  
> suspect that it should)?
>
> Comments appreciated.  I'd really like to get this checked in under https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/geronimo/plugins 
>  so it doesn't get lost even if it isn't quite ready for prime-time  
> yet.
>
> Joe