block documentation (was RE: [RT] On building on stone)

[Christopher Oliver <co...@SeeBeyond.com>]

Will the new block system allow plugging in a block's documentation? One
of the things I find most annoying about adding code to the Cocoon Forms
block is that there seems to be no reasonable place to put documentation
- or am I missing something?

Chris

-----Original Message-----
From: Stefano Mazzocchi [mailto:stefano@apache.org] 
Sent: Wednesday, March 24, 2004 8:16 AM
To: dev@cocoon.apache.org
Subject: Re: [RT] On building on stone

Pier Fumagalli wrote:

> "Old" blocks can (IMVHO) work just fine in the new container, "New" 
> blocks will work a bazillion times better! :-P

Pier hits the nail on the head here: Cocoon's use of Avalon grew over 
years and years, like a tectonic plate that while solid in a particular 
time frame, over time morphs into thick and revolving crusts.

This doesn't mean that it doesn't work. It does, in fact. But Avalon's 
generality and the aim to solve more problems in one shot ended up 
harming us, so much so that Cocoon's code is more complex than it needs 
to be.

Moreover, because of the way components are loaded, used and released 
and how roles are established, there is simply no way we can have hot 
deployable dynamic polimorphism.

What does this mean for you?

Well, it's rather simple: old code will work in an avalon sandbox. It 
basically means that it will see cocoon *exactly* as it used to be
before.

But this will also mean that will be isolated from other blocks and will

not be able, for example, to load components from other blocks.

so, here is a picture

  +-------------+   +----------------+
  | Cocoon Core |---| Avalon Sandbox |
  +-------------+   | +------------+ |
        |           | |  old code  | |
        |           | +------------+ |
        |           +----------------+
        |
        |          +------------+    +-----------+
        +----------| new code   |====| new block |
                   +------------+    +-----------+


So, the question I hear emerging is: why should I migrate my code to the

new core?

The answer will come up shortly.

-- 
Stefano.

Re: block documentation (was RE: [RT] On building on stone)

[Pier Fumagalli <pi...@betaversion.org>]

On 24 Mar 2004, at 21:15, Stefano Mazzocchi wrote:

> Christopher Oliver wrote:
>
>> Will the new block system allow plugging in a block's documentation? 
>> One
>> of the things I find most annoying about adding code to the Cocoon 
>> Forms
>> block is that there seems to be no reasonable place to put 
>> documentation
>> - or am I missing something?
>
> I think the block architecture will be powerful enough to do what you 
> want without requiring specific functionality.
>
> In any case, yes, I agree with you that such documentation modularity 
> is also something we should address.

That's more something related to a "ant task" (or similar) than the 
core-core containment packages... But I agree as well...

	Pier

Re: block documentation (was RE: [RT] On building on stone)

[Stefano Mazzocchi <st...@apache.org>]

Christopher Oliver wrote:

> Will the new block system allow plugging in a block's documentation? One
> of the things I find most annoying about adding code to the Cocoon Forms
> block is that there seems to be no reasonable place to put documentation
> - or am I missing something?

I think the block architecture will be powerful enough to do what you 
want without requiring specific functionality.

In any case, yes, I agree with you that such documentation modularity is 
also something we should address.

-- 
Stefano.