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Posted to users@cocoon.apache.org by Julian Klein <ce...@yahoo.com> on 2003/01/25 19:58:51 UTC
Re: Cocoon is complex, but worth it! Some Answers to your dilemma
First off I made some suggestions to your
questions/problems below...skip ahead if you don't
want my commentary on Cocoon.
Well it seems to me that when I started with Cocoon, I
was hoping to jump right on in. Unfortunately, it was
not that easy, but not b/c of Cocoon, rather my
limited knowledge of xpath and xsl functions. Anyway,
I tackled these problems by studying the applications
samples packaged with cocoon and reading the
documentation. It may be discouraging, but anything
worthwhile can't be done overnight, right? Anyway, as
I work more and more with Cocoon, I am amazed by the
genius of it's architecture. Cocoon is certainly a
tribute to Open Source and the greatness of those out
there working on and contributing to it. Stick to it
and you will be repaid.
************************************************
It seems if you have a servlet working, you must be
looking to upgrade. So you should not be looking for
an overnight solution, which is easy with all the
options out there. Overall, the advice I can give is
you must consider:
1)Are you going to use Cocoon for more than just a
replacement for your servlet?
2)What technologies do you want to use: XSP,XSLT,etc.
3)You do not need to build from the CVS source, you
can just download a pre-built version from the site
(nightly or major release)
http://xml.apache.org/dist/cocoon/
4)You may not need to create a new transformer, but
perhaps just make an action.
http://xml.apache.org/cocoon/userdocs/concepts/actions.html
5)You prob need a minimal sitemap(see below) to match
your url requests to your data. No need to worry
about the endless options now. The beauty is you will
learn them as you go and find that Cocoon has almost
everything you could ever need.
6)Look over the user's guide and study some of the
sitemaps packages with Cocoon.
I hope this makes some sense. If not, I 'm sorry, but
I feel as if Cocoon is a great way to go if you want
to do more than just replace your serlvlet. With all
the users, developers, wiki, documentation, and
mailing lists...you will almost always get an answer.
Whether or not it makes sense ;-) ! I attached a
basic sitemap to get you going...
-Julian
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<map:sitemap
xmlns:map="http://apache.org/cocoon/sitemap/1.0">
<!-- =========================== Components
=================================== -->
<map:components>
<map:generators default="file"/>
<map:transformers default="xslt"/>
<map:readers default="resource"/>
<map:serializers default="html">
<map:serializer logger="sitemap.serializer.xml"
mime-type="text/xml" name="xml"
src="org.apache.cocoon.serialization.XMLSerializer"/>
<map:serializer logger="sitemap.serializer.html"
mime-type="text/html" name="html"
pool-grow="4" pool-max="32"
pool-min="4"
src="org.apache.cocoon.serialization.HTMLSerializer">
<buffer-size>1024</buffer-size>
</map:serializer>
</map:serializers>
<map:matchers default="wildcard"/>
<map:selectors default="browser"/>
</map:components>
<!-- =========================== Pipelines
================================= -->
<map:pipelines>
<map:pipeline>
<map:match pattern="**">
<!-- ========================= Dynamic Content
================================-->
<map:match pattern="viewHTML/**">
<map:generate src="myXMLDataSource"/>
<map:transform src="myXSLSheet"/>
<map:serialize type="html"/>
</map:match>
<map:match pattern="viewXML/**">
<map:generate src="myXMLDataSource"/>
<map:transform src="myXSLSheet"/>
<map:serialize type="xml"/>
</map:match>
<!-- ========================= Static Content
=====================================-->
<map:match pattern="viewStaticHTML">
<map:read src="static.html"/>
</map:match>
<map:match pattern="**images/*.png">
<map:read src="images/{2}.png"
mime-type="image/png"/>
</map:match>
<map:match pattern="**images/*.jpg">
<map:read src="images/{2}.jpg"
mime-type="image/jpeg"/>
</map:match>
<map:handle-errors>
<map:transform
src="context://task/stylesheets/error2html.xsl"/>
<map:serialize status-code="500"/>
</map:handle-errors>
</map:pipeline>
</map:pipelines>
</map:sitemap>
=====
Live simply so others may simply live.
�
-Ghandi
�
Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate.
"Entities should not be multiplied unneccesarily"
�
-William of Occam
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Re: Cocoon is complex, but worth it! Some Answers to your dilemma
Posted by Antonio Gallardo <ag...@agsoftware.dnsalias.com>.
You really does dont want the help people give you:
Please just click here:
http://wiki.cocoondev.org/Wiki.jsp?page=Tutorials
and you will be ready after 3 hours. Please read just the 1st tutorial
from IBM developerworks.
Antonio Gallardo.
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Re: Cocoon. More Answers to your dilemma
Posted by SAXESS - Hussayn Dabbous <da...@saxess.com>.
There is one problem with your approach:
What if your webapp uses different versions of
commonly used jars ?
I had this problem with one of my webapps, that
internally used an older version of the avalon
framework and some other jars incompatible to
my cocoon-2.0.4. I tried hard to get my webapp integrated
into cocoon and finally i gave up and came to following
solution:
1.) I set up a clean cocoon webapp
2.) I create a sitemap only for presentation
issues (the web frontend of my webapp)
and instrument what i need for this purpose
into a subdirectory within the cocoon app.
3.) I set up my "legacy" application completely
separated from cocoon
4.) I created an XML interface that consists
primarily of a bunch of jsp's that interact
with my legacy app and spill out XML to cocoon.
I could have used exis of course, but the interface
was not soo complex...
By this a could cleanly separate my legacy application
from my frontend. I had not to deal with compatibility
issues and i ended up in a very nice presentation layer.
What i liked most about this is the (almoust) total
separation of logic from presentation ;-)
There was only one caveat to master: My apps are under
authentification control. Therefore we implemented
a session aware protocol named "proxy:" that allows
under certain circumstances to transparently transfer
cookies between the browser and the legacyapplication.
Currently both apps must run in the same container and
the container must provide SSO. But i hope this limitation
can be eliminated in the near future...
regards, hussayn
Julian Klein wrote:
> Robert,
>
>
>>I want all
>>the framework configs out of my way. I want all of
>>the options and jars and so on neatly tucked away
>>and where I can just drop them
>>in a directory and forget about them.
>
>
> You can do one of two things with the jars.
>
> 1)The Cocoon war by default has all of them stored in
> a certain lib directory. When you unpack the war in
> Tomcat on startup the path would be as follows
> (assuming the war is in the $TOMCAT_HOME/webapps
> directory on startup):
> $TOMCAT_HOME/webapps/cocoon/WEB-INF/lib. This way all
> the jars are available to the servlet container that
> is running the cocoon app and localized to this
> directory.
>
> 2)You could move all these jars to $TOMCAT_HOME/lib or
> if you are running a newer version of Tomcat
> (e.g.4.1.12) then it would be $TOMCAT_HOME/common/lib.
> If you put the jars here they will be available to
> all webapps running in Tomcat and be localized.
> Unlike the first option, this allows a more "public"
> feel to your jars (the first is more like a
> "protected" feel to the jars).
>
> NOTE:All that was Tomcat specific deployment info, not
> Cocoon. So the Cocoon developers have used the first
> option to allow these jars to be localized and clean.
>
> The jars can also be found at:
> xml-cocoon/build/cocoon/webapp/WEB-INF/lib
>
>
>>Now Id like to have a war that is THAT small and
>>without having to have an intimate knowledge of
>>cocoon to accomplish it.
>
>
> You would have to build Cocoon from the CVS source
> code and modify the Ant build script to stop the
> packaging of jars in the cocoon war. This requires a
> minimal knowledge of Ant.
>
>
>>-->--> web.xml (NOT a 40 meg file)
>
>
> Finally, the web.xml that comes with Cocoon in only a
> few Ks. So it should never be more, unless you have
> added A LOT of servlet mappings, but that must be
> proprietary.
>
> Hope this helps,
> Julian
>
>
>
> =====
> Live simply so others may simply live.
>
> -Ghandi
>
> Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate.
> "Entities should not be multiplied unneccesarily"
>
> -William of Occam
>
> __________________________________________________
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> Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now.
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>
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>
--
Dr. Hussayn Dabbous
SAXESS Software Design GmbH
Neuenhöfer Allee 125
50935 Köln
Telefon: +49-221-56011-0
Fax: +49-221-56011-20
E-Mail: dabbous@saxess.com
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Re: Cocoon. More Answers to your dilemma
Posted by Julian Klein <ce...@yahoo.com>.
Robert,
> I want all
> the framework configs out of my way. I want all of
> the options and jars and so on neatly tucked away
> and where I can just drop them
> in a directory and forget about them.
You can do one of two things with the jars.
1)The Cocoon war by default has all of them stored in
a certain lib directory. When you unpack the war in
Tomcat on startup the path would be as follows
(assuming the war is in the $TOMCAT_HOME/webapps
directory on startup):
$TOMCAT_HOME/webapps/cocoon/WEB-INF/lib. This way all
the jars are available to the servlet container that
is running the cocoon app and localized to this
directory.
2)You could move all these jars to $TOMCAT_HOME/lib or
if you are running a newer version of Tomcat
(e.g.4.1.12) then it would be $TOMCAT_HOME/common/lib.
If you put the jars here they will be available to
all webapps running in Tomcat and be localized.
Unlike the first option, this allows a more "public"
feel to your jars (the first is more like a
"protected" feel to the jars).
NOTE:All that was Tomcat specific deployment info, not
Cocoon. So the Cocoon developers have used the first
option to allow these jars to be localized and clean.
The jars can also be found at:
xml-cocoon/build/cocoon/webapp/WEB-INF/lib
> Now Id like to have a war that is THAT small and
> without having to have an intimate knowledge of
> cocoon to accomplish it.
You would have to build Cocoon from the CVS source
code and modify the Ant build script to stop the
packaging of jars in the cocoon war. This requires a
minimal knowledge of Ant.
> -->--> web.xml (NOT a 40 meg file)
Finally, the web.xml that comes with Cocoon in only a
few Ks. So it should never be more, unless you have
added A LOT of servlet mappings, but that must be
proprietary.
Hope this helps,
Julian
=====
Live simply so others may simply live.
�
-Ghandi
�
Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate.
"Entities should not be multiplied unneccesarily"
�
-William of Occam
__________________________________________________
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Re: Cocoon is complex, but worth it! Some Answers to your dilemma
Posted by Robert Simmons <de...@arcor.de>.
Great. Thanks for the information. However the questions are still thick as pea soup.
If I don't want to deploy all the cocoon jars in my war, I have to put them somewhere. It has been suggested that I put them in the
tomcat lib directory. Ok fine, then how does one configure it?
My goal is to end up with a hello-world war that looks like
myapp.war
--> META-INF
-->--> MANIFEST.MF
-->WEB-INF
-->--> web.xml (NOT a 40 meg file)
-->--> jboss-web.xml
-->--> classes
-->-->--> my action or generator classes.
--> XSL
-->--> My stlye sheets.
--> XSD
-->--> My schema
--> Other static files.
--> my sitemap
Now Id like to have a war that is THAT small and without having to have an intimate knowledge of cocoon to accomplish it. I want all
the framework configs out of my way. I want all of the options and jars and so on neatly tucked away and where I can just drop them
in a directory and forget about them.
I'm seeking USER based simplicity and haven't found it yet. If I had time from my busy schedule I would potentially join the
development effort to get this user simplicity but unfortunately joining cocoon and learning its development wont pay my electric
bills. I have a book to write and the interface to my server for my book should be superfluous, not massively complex. The book is
about the server side and I only need the interact to demonstrate what I'm doing on the server side.
-- Robert
----- Original Message -----
From: "Julian Klein" <ce...@yahoo.com>
To: <co...@xml.apache.org>
Sent: Saturday, January 25, 2003 7:58 PM
Subject: Re: Cocoon is complex, but worth it! Some Answers to your dilemma
> First off I made some suggestions to your
> questions/problems below...skip ahead if you don't
> want my commentary on Cocoon.
>
> Well it seems to me that when I started with Cocoon, I
> was hoping to jump right on in. Unfortunately, it was
> not that easy, but not b/c of Cocoon, rather my
> limited knowledge of xpath and xsl functions. Anyway,
> I tackled these problems by studying the applications
> samples packaged with cocoon and reading the
> documentation. It may be discouraging, but anything
> worthwhile can't be done overnight, right? Anyway, as
> I work more and more with Cocoon, I am amazed by the
> genius of it's architecture. Cocoon is certainly a
> tribute to Open Source and the greatness of those out
> there working on and contributing to it. Stick to it
> and you will be repaid.
>
>
>
> ************************************************
> It seems if you have a servlet working, you must be
> looking to upgrade. So you should not be looking for
> an overnight solution, which is easy with all the
> options out there. Overall, the advice I can give is
> you must consider:
>
> 1)Are you going to use Cocoon for more than just a
> replacement for your servlet?
>
> 2)What technologies do you want to use: XSP,XSLT,etc.
>
> 3)You do not need to build from the CVS source, you
> can just download a pre-built version from the site
> (nightly or major release)
> http://xml.apache.org/dist/cocoon/
>
> 4)You may not need to create a new transformer, but
> perhaps just make an action.
> http://xml.apache.org/cocoon/userdocs/concepts/actions.html
>
> 5)You prob need a minimal sitemap(see below) to match
> your url requests to your data. No need to worry
> about the endless options now. The beauty is you will
> learn them as you go and find that Cocoon has almost
> everything you could ever need.
>
> 6)Look over the user's guide and study some of the
> sitemaps packages with Cocoon.
>
> I hope this makes some sense. If not, I 'm sorry, but
> I feel as if Cocoon is a great way to go if you want
> to do more than just replace your serlvlet. With all
> the users, developers, wiki, documentation, and
> mailing lists...you will almost always get an answer.
> Whether or not it makes sense ;-) ! I attached a
> basic sitemap to get you going...
>
> -Julian
>
> <?xml version="1.0"?>
> <map:sitemap
> xmlns:map="http://apache.org/cocoon/sitemap/1.0">
>
> <!-- =========================== Components
> =================================== -->
>
> <map:components>
> <map:generators default="file"/>
>
> <map:transformers default="xslt"/>
>
> <map:readers default="resource"/>
>
> <map:serializers default="html">
> <map:serializer logger="sitemap.serializer.xml"
> mime-type="text/xml" name="xml"
>
> src="org.apache.cocoon.serialization.XMLSerializer"/>
>
> <map:serializer logger="sitemap.serializer.html"
> mime-type="text/html" name="html"
> pool-grow="4" pool-max="32"
> pool-min="4"
>
> src="org.apache.cocoon.serialization.HTMLSerializer">
> <buffer-size>1024</buffer-size>
> </map:serializer>
> </map:serializers>
>
> <map:matchers default="wildcard"/>
>
> <map:selectors default="browser"/>
>
> </map:components>
>
>
> <!-- =========================== Pipelines
> ================================= -->
> <map:pipelines>
> <map:pipeline>
> <map:match pattern="**">
> <!-- ========================= Dynamic Content
> ================================-->
> <map:match pattern="viewHTML/**">
> <map:generate src="myXMLDataSource"/>
> <map:transform src="myXSLSheet"/>
> <map:serialize type="html"/>
> </map:match>
> <map:match pattern="viewXML/**">
> <map:generate src="myXMLDataSource"/>
> <map:transform src="myXSLSheet"/>
> <map:serialize type="xml"/>
> </map:match>
> <!-- ========================= Static Content
> =====================================-->
> <map:match pattern="viewStaticHTML">
> <map:read src="static.html"/>
> </map:match>
>
> <map:match pattern="**images/*.png">
> <map:read src="images/{2}.png"
> mime-type="image/png"/>
> </map:match>
>
> <map:match pattern="**images/*.jpg">
> <map:read src="images/{2}.jpg"
> mime-type="image/jpeg"/>
> </map:match>
>
> <map:handle-errors>
> <map:transform
> src="context://task/stylesheets/error2html.xsl"/>
> <map:serialize status-code="500"/>
> </map:handle-errors>
>
> </map:pipeline>
> </map:pipelines>
> </map:sitemap>
>
> =====
> Live simply so others may simply live.
>
> -Ghandi
>
> Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate.
> "Entities should not be multiplied unneccesarily"
>
> -William of Occam
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now.
> http://mailplus.yahoo.com
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> Please check that your question has not already been answered in the
> FAQ before posting. <http://xml.apache.org/cocoon/faq/index.html>
>
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: <co...@xml.apache.org>
> For additional commands, e-mail: <co...@xml.apache.org>
>
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Re: Cocoon is complex, but worth it! Some Answers to your dilemma
Posted by Niclas Hedhman <ni...@hedhman.org>.
First of all, I generally agree with you Robert.
1. Cocoon is overly daunting at first sight.
2. MS get you going much faster.
3. Separation between User and Developer must be stronger.
4. Point-Click deployment tools should become a priority.
There are a few things I don't agree with;
1. I downloaded Cocoon for the first time in 2years in "binary" form and
dropped the ready-made cocoon.war into Tomcat (also default config).
Worked straight out of the box, although the docs suggested otherwise. Since I
was involved in discussing the sitemap concept in the first place, I knew how
that mechanism work, and was within an hour able to publish my first
document.
2. Everything can not be learnt in 10 minutes. I bet you spent a few weeks
before mastering Java. How long for XML? Or why not the "MS friendly" Excel?
Certain things takes time, Cocoon is one where you probably need to "invest
time". You talk about "real business". And I do "real business", no paycheck,
no security, only what I produce.
The matter of fact, "investments" are almost always "upfront expenditure" for
long-term "returns", a.k.a Return-On-Investment (ROI). Sometimes expressed in
time, even for money. I invest $100,000, ROI=2years, meaning from now until
24months it has cost more than it returned, after that it is "profit".
You do it all the time. Learn new things to be more productive. Why waste the
time? It's up to you.
3. 61MB download is a problem??? The dozens of CDs that MSDN consists of is
not? Try to download them, or a portion of it. What is the footprint of
dotNet? Downloadable? I don't know, but I doubt it.
In fact, when I was shouting about the trouble to install Cocoon in the old
days, requiring 10 separate downloads from almost as many sources, I was told
that the bundle would be too big. I'm happy that people reconsidered it.
Finally,
There are efforts going on to improve the separation, and you come back in a
year, and you will be able to create and deploy COBs (just learnt it) as easy
as a WAR, and no need to "see", "hear" or "smell" internals of Cocoon.
I feel you have passed judgement already, but I recommend you to make it a
"preliminary injunction", and re-evaluate your position, especially when you
have a weekend to "invest". It should take much more...
Niclas
On Sunday 26 January 2003 10:47, Robert Simmons wrote:
> > Robert Simmons dijo:
> > >No professional dev wants, or has the time, to blow 2 to
> > > three weeks just to get separation of logic and presentation.
> >
> > How you think a Professional developer do that? I ended my Master Degree
> > in Computer Science in 1995 just before Java hits the streets and Windows
> > 95 was just at beta release? How do you think I am here now?
> >
> > > Too high of a price for too little gain.
> >
> > Please if you said that phrase you dont really understand what is in the
> > game. I recommend you to check how this little grain affect totally the
> > Web machinery at all. I recommend you to read the second chapter of the
> > Carsten Matthew book: XML: Building XML Applications. You can find it at
> > amazon.com
>
> Well, I dont think you understand the pressures in professional circles to
> meet deadlines. In the open source world, you have all the time in the
> world to screw with things. When using a product in a working business
> deadlines get in the way of doing things the "right" way. This is an
> explanation of why .NET has been successful. Its a cheap piece of garbage,
> but its easy to get started. Noone wants to be an expert in 10 hours but
> they at leat want to have somethign of a clue.
>
> > > Powerful? I believe you. I believe its powerful. Scalable? I don't
> > > know.
> >
> > Scalable? Please, just check JBoss.org and answer yourself the question.
> >
> > > The Wiki page runs very slow for me and a tutorial linked to me from
> > > the IBM site (which was done in cocoon) was taking 10 to 15 seconds per
> > > page to render.
> >
> > This is an issue for your computer and/or Internet connection.
>
> I dont knwo the cuase but it isnt my isp.
>
> > I live in
> > Managua, Nicaragua. Maybe it is so far that you dont know where is it.
> > But the wiki takes me less that 3 secs. Of course I use Red Hat Linux 8.0
> > and Mozilla that is faster than MS IE. Sometimes I go down and use a
> > Windows machine, but I always use Mozilla, because it is faster.
> >
> > Check http://www.mozilla.org
>
> Great. You like mozilla. Do me a favor and go out there and convince all
> the bluechip companies to switch. You may not like microsoft but in a
> business world you have to deal with it. Whether that is bad or good is
> irrlevant.
>
> > > Put that in production and your company can kiss sales
> > > goodbye. Internet users are impatient and any guy with a DSL isn't
> > > going to wait 15 seconds for your page.
> >
> > This is a developers issue, not a Cocoon issue. There are many books
> > related about web design. How to improve performance using CSS, etc. Take
> > a look at that technology and tell me how slow it is.
>
> What CSS has to do with my question is beyond me.
>
> > > User friendly? You've got to be joking.
> >
> > What? Cocoon? Well, here I think you must first understand the philosophy
> > behind Cocoon and after that we can talk about that.
>
> No no no. You arent gettign it. People dont WANT to understand the
> philosophy. Do I have to understand the JBoss development philosophy to use
> it? Nope. What about Ant? Again nope. What about Tomcat? Agin the answer is
> no. You dont seem to be able to separate the cocoon developer from the
> cocoon user. One is trying to contribute to the cocoon project but the rest
> of us just want to use it to snap up a pipeline in 15 min. We honestly
> couldnt care less what the philosophy of its internal design is. Its
> irrlevant to us. I get paid for makign applications for my company, not for
> learnign the concept of cocoon. If I have to learn the philosophy behind
> how a tool is developed, that tool simply wont make the production
> schedule. Business life is hard. In addition, according to object oriented
> philosophy, I shouldnt have to know the philosophy behind a tool. Cocoon
> should be a black box that i can use to wire together sitemaps. The only
> time I need know anything is the interface I have to implement to design a
> new generator and what xml file to declare it in. If someone asks me "how
> does cocoon work?" I should be able to say "beats me but it does." You can
> bet that when .NET puts out their product it will be like that. Knowing
> Microsoft the product will be utter crap. However it will trounce cocoon
> into the dust and people such as yourself will be staring at the carnage
> and saying "but WHY!!!???" The answer is the same reason why many awesome
> technologies have never worked. They failed to attract interest and
> customers and never evolved.
>
> > Windows makes us too lazy, we want to do all just clicking a mouse.
>
> Welcome to business life reality. Your geek based (and I mean that as a
> complement) idealism jsut flat doesnt pay the bills.
>
> > > No, I don't want to take up any more time from folks. I just simply
> > > don't have the time to mess with it. Reading config files and figuring
> > > out how the hell to build a new application just isn't what I want to
> > > do a very trivial part of my project with.
> >
> > I will see you back again. Maybe the next year, how knows, but if you
> > will stay at the development arena, you soon or late will be faced again
> > with this technology. Please, Take a note of that.
>
> Probably not. You have about the same amout of time to revolutionize cocoon
> to be an easy thing to use as it takes Microsoft to write competition. Deal
> with it. Its a reality. If they put out a "cocoon" that is a piece of crap
> with half the functionality of this one but weasy to use and deploy, than
> they will blast this product right out the market. Microsoft understands
> the need for Jumpstarts and quick starts. If cocoon is to survive, it needs
> to change tactics fast. Away from "download nad build the source and then
> do steps one through 600 and you will finally see a hello page." To, "well,
> run the ant install script with your tomcat directory as a property, than
> biuld a new sie using the basic example and oyu should have a hello-world
> up in about 5 min."
>
> Right now I just finished downloadign cocoon from cvs. The bloody source is
> 61 megs. That is a burning problem right there. One need not go any
> further.
>
> Now im not attacking your baby. Im merely pointing out the need to teach
> your baby some tricks.
>
> > Best Regards,
> >
> > Antonio Gallardo.
>
> --Robert
>
>
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Re: Cocoon is complex, HOLD ON, WHY IS THIS BOILING UP ?
Posted by SAXESS - Hussayn Dabbous <da...@saxess.com>.
Antonio,
sorry, i really misinterpreted your last email. Seems i was wrong
(big apologize!) this was really not meant against you.
Let me explain what i have in mind:
>In the OpenSources the things goes a diferent way. This is not a
>company where are people getting money to support you. Then the
>less you can do is thanks people that use his time to help you.
>How you will fell if >somebody stop you at the street and start
>attacking you just because you dont >know where is the street
>called "X"? This is ridiculous, right? I think some people here
>had the same feel.
You are right in all points. i agree.
But i did not understand robert's criticism in this direction.
I understand, he attacks some severe critical points, which
should be taken into concern (hope this is correct english...)
I did not hear, "the cocooners shall do it", i heard
"this is may be a severe problem", which is a completely different
message so far ...
From my point of view: cocoon can only proove it's long turn
significance, if it is introduced into "business", where business
does not necessarily mean "commercial business". It means
to prove cocoon to be
* customisable
* developer friendly (not userfriendly!)
* stable
* performant
* scalable
* well documented
* downward (upward?) compatible
* ...
and much much more...
This proof is partially performed from all of those who use
cocoon in their "business" (including me ;-). But this proof
is not in first place a task of the cocoon comunity, but
it may be a task of a possibly commercial group, which takes
care on these things and stays in constant discussion with the
core development of cocoon. Yes and everyone, who wants to get
this cocoon++ should have to pay for it in some way, or has to
enhance it on his/her own ;-)
For me currently the most significant problem is, that cocoon is
moving too fast to get a grasp on it and start quality assurance
issues. Maybe this is what the cocoon comunity really have to
take care about: "Getting the system into a state, where it can
be quality assured..."
And this is where a must agree with Robert ...
You see: I am with cocoon, i love it, but i also see the big big
potential "success leaks" ;-)
regards, hussayn
Antonio Gallardo wrote:
>
> Yes I know this point, but for this reason you cannot just come here and
> after 12 hours, start attacking something you dont know. This is the worng
> way. In place you can ask in another way.
>
>
>>Maybe we should calm down a bit and take this thread really
>>serious. It contains much of material to think about.
>>And in many senses the criticism here can't be discussed
>>away.
>
>
> I never got angry. I agree.
>
> Antonio Gallardo.
>
>
>
>
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--
Dr. Hussayn Dabbous
SAXESS Software Design GmbH
Neuenhöfer Allee 125
50935 Köln
Telefon: +49-221-56011-0
Fax: +49-221-56011-20
E-Mail: dabbous@saxess.com
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Re: Cocoon is complex, HOLD ON, WHY IS THIS BOILING UP ?
Posted by Nicola Ken Barozzi <ni...@apache.org>.
Robert Simmons wrote:
> Having Hello-World up in 12 hours is not exactly a steep request.
I'm a cocoon developer and committer. I think I know what I'm saying.
Base Cocoon is not difficult. But given the current documentation and
examples, even only understanding what a "base" Cocoon usage is... well,
it's really difficult.
I feel and understand your frustration. It's justified.
>But a JSP hello-world page I was able to get up and working in 15
> minutes.
That's what we should do.
We have already put some additions in the latest Cocoon in CVS to put in
a wevserver, so that nothing is needed to simply run a hello-world.
Unfortunately the last releases were hit by a samples refactoring that
was never really finished, and now the blocks.
We have to repolish it all now.
Thanks for your pointers, they should remember us all that we have still
work to do on this side.
Ciao.
--
Nicola Ken Barozzi nicolaken@apache.org
- verba volant, scripta manent -
(discussions get forgotten, just code remains)
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Re: Cocoon is complex, HOLD ON, WHY IS THIS BOILING UP ?
Posted by Antonio Gallardo <ag...@agsoftware.dnsalias.com>.
Robert Simmons dijo:
> Java and C++ both have places to start. You can get a Hello World up in
> about 5 minutes.
If you read just the 1st tutorial I pointed you in wiki you will dont told
that.
> This isn't a game. Its not a toy. Its not something that can be said
"like it or leave it." Its a technology.
I know that. Nobody here is just playing. I do professional work too. I
builded my first Cocoon application in 2 months. Now I am starting a new
project. Who is just playing here?
> And the other newbies to this product are likely not as
> tenacious as I am and will say "well to hell with it."
I already saw that.
> Cocoon needs some SERIOUS work in the usability zone. No no,
> I don't expect to understand
> it in 12 hours. Don't be ridicules. I do expect to be able to make a
> start on understanding it in 12 hours though. Having Hello-World up in
> 12 hours is not exactly a steep request.
You told that. You started pointing things out after 12 hours.
>
> If the users have to build from source, which is NEVER a straightforward
> process, they will take off and find something easier.
I think you have mixed some things. Cocoon already let you download the
2.0.4 distribution right from the web site. Install instructions are at:
http://xml.apache.org/cocoon/installing/index.html
I think what happened here is that many people is working right with the
CVS version. Then when there are some changes, they need to download the
sources and recompile it. But you cannot do it if you dont. By the way to
compile Cocoon just run this command:
./build.sh -Dinclude.webapp.libs=true -Dinclude.scratchpad.libs=true webapp
That is all, then you need to copy the generated war file to the webapp
directory of your Tomcat installation.
> A job that has nothing to do with developing and understanding the
> architecture of cocoon. So there is a dichotomy you are missing. The
> line between the developer and the user. The USERS don't have time to
> learn Avalon and cocoon and a billion other things. All of this detail
> should be HIDDEN from them.
You are not obligated to understand Avalon, etc to understand how Cocoon
works.
When I told about philosophy I thinked about the pipelines. This is the
most important concept here. You must also learn about the sitemap. That
is the heart of Cocoon. Here you define what will be processed and how.
But this does not have nothing to do with Cocoon.
Maybe nobody told you but if you point to:
http://localhost:8080/cocoon/samples/
You will see the current examples of Cocoon.
> Right now I get the impression that if I
> ever did want to make my own generator, I would need to mount 50 jars
> into my NetBeans project. NOT AN OPTION. One jar, fine. 50, no.
The really block is a work in progress. The idea is to make independent
blocks and let people to choose what want to use.
> don't care about setting the properties of the WML serializer. I'm not
> even going to use the WML serializer.
You can remove it from the sitemap without any problem. The first part of
the sitemap is a declaration of what you want to use. I think like the
#include in C or import in Java.
By the way in this languagues you also need to know what include or import
in order to make use of the library or package.
> My goal is to snap together a web
> site, route it through cocoon with my own sitemap and pipeline and go.
> Anything I don't specify or configure should DEFAULT to pre-configured
> settings.
Look, just for taste Cocoon, you can do that without problem. Dont be
afraid you can later tune the Cocoon machine even after the application is
deployed.
I had problems here too at deployment time.... As many other Open Source
Software Cocoon comes with a minimal configuration that let you run it on
almost every machine. Of course you MUST config it when you plan to deploy
it on production environment.
> So yell "get the hell out!" all you want. People will. And instead of
> cocoon winning the race and capturing the minds and hearts of web
> publishers, it will be .NET. The whole .NET framework should teach you
> something.
I think this is out off topics. I pointed to .NET just to show that maybe
in the future the super company will have something similar to this.
Nothing more. Personally I am a Linux fan. And I am working in that way.
The same as I did it almost 10 years ago when we started to replace Novell
and UNIX in favor of NT. Our clients are happy that they are not more tied
to MS in the new application. Of course, thanks to Java they can run on MS
plataform, but currently run the application on Linux.
> If its too complex to understand, it will LOOSE no matter how
> good it is.
This is not TOO COMPLEX. As I pointed before it is just other philosophy
of developing (I mean as a user). I dont know where also you need to think
about generator, tranformers, serialization. I started to know about it
here. The pipeline concept is the base of all. No Avalon or similars.....
When the new users go to .NET and put up hello-world in 20
> minutes, cocoon wont have a chance. So cocoon has really two options in
> my newbie opinion. 1) Start putting in that layer that attracts new
> users.
Maybe yes, maybe not. Who knows? Well, almost every thing in the world
have a cost and as the people are discovering Linux and it good tools they
are tempted to use it. Just see the lastest reports about
2) Die.
Hey?! It is not about money. This is the point that MS people is not
understanding here. This is not the case of Novell: "Stop the selling and
you win". Cocoon as Linux and many other opensources projects started
without millons on bags.
> As for me personally, I'm already far behind schedule now. 2 days of
> dealing with this thing and getting nowhere. Ill give it a couple more
> hours of consideration and if I still cant get a hello-world up without
> knowing a thing about the internal architecture,
> I will move on and implement it all in JSP.
I will recomend you dont do it. Maybe you will save time now and you will
waste it when the changes will come. I really recomend you take a little
more patience and try it out. It is a worth. Currently my last client
asked me some improvements on the plataform and to be serious I am happy
because I know this is very easy now thanks to Cocoon.
When I started researching about a plataform I stoped at JSP too. But the
mess of code and tags take me away. This frustate every body when the
inevitable changes come.
> Scoff all you want. But a JSP hello-world page I was able to get up
> and working in 15 minutes.
Clear, because this is a continuity technology of the same approach. I
think in Cocoon you will start thinking in another way.
At the end, I just want to say that Cocoon is not my baby. I love it
because open a nice door in the current development effort. A
revolutionary effort.
I am not angry after all you are told about this. I dont have a clue why
can I be? ;-)
Every ones have the right to write his opinions. And I thank you because
you let me explain some of the Cocoon points here.
Best Regards,
Antonio Gallardo.
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Re: Cocoon is complex, HOLD ON, WHY IS THIS BOILING UP ?
Posted by Robert Simmons <de...@arcor.de>.
My direct mail is derisor@arcor.de which is where to send any files. Ill be
interested to see what you have but I have to confess my frustration level is
ratcheted up high and almost out of the reach of rationality. I'm generally
not messing with web-client side much. I am paid professionally for my back
end expertise and us usually leave the front end to some jockey with
dreamweaver MX to tackle the jsps. I am primarily an enterprise programmer
and work on the EJB back end. What I intend to do with this think is to
create my EJBs. Write generators that contact the EJBs an get information and
publish that information. Somewhere along the road I need to have forms that
then call the EJBs and execute commands on them. Right now Id settle for
getting stuff out.
Example? Here you go .. attached to this is a current example of one little
command that gets the smileys for a forum application using a straight
servlet to XML. This guy works by expecting the browser to do the XSLT
transform for me. Its a hack. A demo just to test the full pipeline and proof
of concept of using XML rather than JSP for the front end.
Now I want to do THIS in cocoon. That is my ultimate goal for the evening.
-- Robert
----- Original Message -----
From: "Geoff Howard" <co...@leverageweb.com>
To: <co...@xml.apache.org>
Sent: Sunday, January 26, 2003 5:01 AM
Subject: RE: Cocoon is complex, HOLD ON, WHY IS THIS BOILING UP ?
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Robert Simmons [mailto:derisor@arcor.de]
> > Sent: Saturday, January 25, 2003 10:19 PM
> > To: cocoon-users@xml.apache.org
> > Subject: Re: Cocoon is complex, HOLD ON, WHY IS THIS BOILING UP ?
> >
> >
> > The biggest concept that has me is. "Ok so this is cocoon
> > including everything
> > but the kitchen sink... so where do I start on my OWN site?
> Ok, that's what this minimal build is working toward. I know
> it's now just instructions, but it could soon be part of the
> binary dist.
>
> > Do I
> > need to copy
> > this enormous cocoon config file?
>
> Depends on which one? sitemap.xmap can be stripped down significantly, as
> you'll see when I send you the 5 meg war. cocoon.xconf could be, but the
> idea
> is that for most people and needs, you never need to touch it. It's 27k -
> my
> advice is just leave it there and don't touch it. Maybe it should have a
> prominent comment at the top declaring that this file is necessary, but
> probably won't need to be touched by the end user.
>
> > Haven't they ever heard of
> > defaults?
>
> I guess you mean hardcoded in the java in the event the config isn't there?
> I'd rather have a file I could go to to see what the defaults are than have
> them compiled in. I think this is a matter of taste, and probably won't
> change.
>
> > Do I
> > really need to hand modify all his stuff?
>
> No, unless you mean getting to a minimal build.
>
> > Why is everyone telling
> > me to build
> > the blasted thing from source?
>
> Only because you wanted to get rid of the unnecessary elements, and this is
> the
> only way to do it for now. It's changing, but as you can imagine having
> seen the
> size of this, there's a lot of work to make it simple.
>
> > Cocoon.xconf ? Do I need this in
> > my new war?
> Yes, it's in the one I'll send and you can leave it alone.
>
> > Holy
> > Christ there are allot of jars (28 is still allot .. prepack them in the
> > distrib).
> I'd think this is a matter of taste, but sure I'll pack them together for
> you.
>
> > Logikit? I use log4j for everything else. After all its the best
> > logging package ever made! What's with logikit?"
>
> Don't know why logkit was chosen, but this is configurable the the xconf
> file, but
> I'd advise you to leave it alone at this stage. But it's exactly that kind
> of scenario
> that has led to the flexibility/complexity that you see. The
implementation
> is hidden
> from the user through an abstraction. Logging in the components I write is
> as simple as
> getLogger().debug("there you go");
> or getLogger().error("there you go");
>
> I don't know much about the internals of either package and don't care for
> the most part.
>
> >
> > Those are the things that pop to mind.
> >
> > Other things vary such as "why the heck wont JBoss let me
> > redeploy this sucker?"
>
> Not sure, but if you post that on the list (after searching the mail
> archives) I bet
> you'll find someone who's run into that.
>
> Do you need to deploy within JBoss though?
>
> > One question I got when I undeployed it from JBoss and dropped it
> > back in and
> > then hit the URL and watched IE wave its flag at me for 5 min in
> > some sort of
> > endless loop.
>
> Obviously not normal behavior, but no idea what's going on. I've never
seen
> that and guess it's some issue with JBoss that is probably known by JBoss
> users.
>
> >
> > -- Robert
>
> Geoff
>
>
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RE: Cocoon is complex, HOLD ON, WHY IS THIS BOILING UP ?
Posted by Geoff Howard <co...@leverageweb.com>.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Robert Simmons [mailto:derisor@arcor.de]
> Sent: Saturday, January 25, 2003 10:19 PM
> To: cocoon-users@xml.apache.org
> Subject: Re: Cocoon is complex, HOLD ON, WHY IS THIS BOILING UP ?
>
>
> The biggest concept that has me is. "Ok so this is cocoon
> including everything
> but the kitchen sink... so where do I start on my OWN site?
Ok, that's what this minimal build is working toward. I know
it's now just instructions, but it could soon be part of the
binary dist.
> Do I
> need to copy
> this enormous cocoon config file?
Depends on which one? sitemap.xmap can be stripped down significantly, as
you'll see when I send you the 5 meg war. cocoon.xconf could be, but the
idea
is that for most people and needs, you never need to touch it. It's 27k -
my
advice is just leave it there and don't touch it. Maybe it should have a
prominent comment at the top declaring that this file is necessary, but
probably won't need to be touched by the end user.
> Haven't they ever heard of
> defaults?
I guess you mean hardcoded in the java in the event the config isn't there?
I'd rather have a file I could go to to see what the defaults are than have
them compiled in. I think this is a matter of taste, and probably won't
change.
> Do I
> really need to hand modify all his stuff?
No, unless you mean getting to a minimal build.
> Why is everyone telling
> me to build
> the blasted thing from source?
Only because you wanted to get rid of the unnecessary elements, and this is
the
only way to do it for now. It's changing, but as you can imagine having
seen the
size of this, there's a lot of work to make it simple.
> Cocoon.xconf ? Do I need this in
> my new war?
Yes, it's in the one I'll send and you can leave it alone.
> Holy
> Christ there are allot of jars (28 is still allot .. prepack them in the
> distrib).
I'd think this is a matter of taste, but sure I'll pack them together for
you.
> Logikit? I use log4j for everything else. After all its the best
> logging package ever made! What's with logikit?"
Don't know why logkit was chosen, but this is configurable the the xconf
file, but
I'd advise you to leave it alone at this stage. But it's exactly that kind
of scenario
that has led to the flexibility/complexity that you see. The implementation
is hidden
from the user through an abstraction. Logging in the components I write is
as simple as
getLogger().debug("there you go");
or getLogger().error("there you go");
I don't know much about the internals of either package and don't care for
the most part.
>
> Those are the things that pop to mind.
>
> Other things vary such as "why the heck wont JBoss let me
> redeploy this sucker?"
Not sure, but if you post that on the list (after searching the mail
archives) I bet
you'll find someone who's run into that.
Do you need to deploy within JBoss though?
> One question I got when I undeployed it from JBoss and dropped it
> back in and
> then hit the URL and watched IE wave its flag at me for 5 min in
> some sort of
> endless loop.
Obviously not normal behavior, but no idea what's going on. I've never seen
that and guess it's some issue with JBoss that is probably known by JBoss
users.
>
> -- Robert
Geoff
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Re: Cocoon is complex, HOLD ON, WHY IS THIS BOILING UP ?
Posted by Robert Simmons <de...@arcor.de>.
The biggest concept that has me is. "Ok so this is cocoon including everything
but the kitchen sink... so where do I start on my OWN site? Do I need to copy
this enormous cocoon config file? Haven't they ever heard of defaults? Do I
really need to hand modify all his stuff? Why is everyone telling me to build
the blasted thing from source? Cocoon.xconf ? Do I need this in my new war? Holy
Christ there are allot of jars (28 is still allot .. prepack them in the
distrib). Logikit? I use log4j for everything else. After all its the best
logging package ever made! What's with logikit?"
Those are the things that pop to mind.
Other things vary such as "why the heck wont JBoss let me redeploy this sucker?"
One question I got when I undeployed it from JBoss and dropped it back in and
then hit the URL and watched IE wave its flag at me for 5 min in some sort of
endless loop.
-- Robert
----- Original Message -----
From: "Geoff Howard" <co...@leverageweb.com>
To: <co...@xml.apache.org>
Cc: <de...@arcor.de>
Sent: Sunday, January 26, 2003 4:07 AM
Subject: RE: Cocoon is complex, HOLD ON, WHY IS THIS BOILING UP ?
> > Java and C++ both have places to start. You can get a Hello World
> > up in about 5 minutes.
>
> I don't think you're asking for a "hello world". I did a hello world within
> a
> few minutes of first downloading cocoon a year ago. Put an xml file
> somewhere.
> Put an xsl file somewhere. In the main sitemap, put
> <map:match pattern="hellothere.html">
> <map:generate src="myxmlfile.xml"/>
> <map:transform src="myxslfile.xsl"/>
> <map:serialize/>
> </map:match>
>
> and you're done. You're a smart guy and you must have done this much by
> now.
>
> Where you go from there is different for everyone. You want to
> do EJB's, some people want to stick with static xml files, some people want
> relational
> databases, some want xml databases, slide, etc. That's all very possible in
> cocoon
> but they are so different that it's made it tough so far to get the user
> experience under control, as you've noticed.
>
> What you've been asking for is legitimate but not currently easily
> available.
>
> I've heard you say:
> 1) Simple user experience. Well, that's a little subjective because of the
> many
> different needs people are bringing to the table but I think everyone here
> would like
> to see that too and value your input on where that's missing.
> 2) Smaller, more self contained war. I asked for that too when I started
> with
> cocoon and had to figure it out on my own unfortunately. I sat down earlier
> and went
> through the steps of the build from source taking out everything optional
> and wrote them down for you and the greater good in the wiki. The war I
> built is less than 5 meg, and worked right away. If you're using jdk1.4 I
> can send you the war.
> The longer term solution is being worked on and has come a long way
> already from 2.0.x but it's in 2.1 which is just getting to alpha stage, and
> so not appropriate for your needs yet.
> 3) The complaint about the number of jars I understand less, unless it was
> related to cutting out what it unnecessary. That can be overwhelming, but
> the minimal build I've described and may one day be included in the
> distribution has only what it needs, so you just leave the jars in there.
> It does have 28 jar files in WEB-INF/lib (about half of what the full
> version has) which sounds like a lot, but I don't yet understand your
> concern there. Cocoon has a sophisticated component based architecture. If
> a bug surfaces in the source resolving component, you will probably be able
> to drop in a replacement for that jar and not have to worry about the rest
> of Cocoon. You can jar those all up together in one big collection if you
> want for convenience if you need to start mingling them with other things.
>
> > If you take the attitude "don't let the
> > door hit you in the ass on the way out," then people will head
> > out and make sure the aforementioned door doesn't strike. This isn't
> > a game. Its not a toy. Its not something that can be said "like
> > it or leave it." Its a technology. And the other newbies to this
> > product are likely not as tenacious as I am and will say "well to
> > hell with it." Cocoon needs some SERIOUS work in the usability
> > zone. No no, I don't expect to understand it in 12 hours. Don't
> > be ridicules. I do expect to be able to make a start on
> > understanding it in 12 hours though. Having Hello-World up in 12
> > hours is not exactly a steep request.
>
> You're right about the work needed for usability, which is why we're
> trying to help. And you are helping us:
>
> - What concepts specifically are the most confusing to you
> from your perspective of just trying to get up and running now that
> you've been looking around the available docs and samples (and where
> are _they_ not much help)?
> The wiki has been helping to get new documentation up quickly,
> so whatever specific discussion we can have on the list will be of
> almost immediate benefit to others that come after.
>
> - EJB use is not well documented and not very "slick" at the moment, but I
> for one have been wanting to take a look at it. Do you see yet how to
> proceed, or can we help get you started? You could easily have a generator
> spitting out xml from an ejb tonight if you'll ask specific questions and
> provide more detail about what is unclear to you.
>
> >
> > If the users have to build from source, which is NEVER a
> > straightforward process, they will take off and find something
> > easier. Ant,
> > for example, is massively extensible....
>
> Obviously that's why the binary distributions are there. But as you've
> pointed
> out they are bloated for your deploying needs which is an excellent point I
> think.
> Follow the instructions I put up at the wiki or let me send you this war
> file and
> let me know if you think this is in the right direction.
>
> > Right now I get the impression that if
> > I ever did want to make my own generator, I would need to mount
> > 50 jars into my NetBeans project. NOT AN OPTION. One jar, fine. 50,
> > no.
>
> I am not familiar enough with NetBeans to help you integrate there but maybe
> someone else is. Still, have you looked at the tutorial on generators I
> sent you a link to? The most complicated example there needs 4 jars on the
> classpath. In case you missed it, it's here:
> http://xml.apache.org/cocoon/tutorial/tutorial-generator.html
>
> I've just noticed that there have been some changes to the way excalibur and
> avalon are distributed since I wrote that, so there may now be a few more
> jars (and the names have changed - I'll get back with the details in a few
> minutes. The docs need to get updated there I think.)
>
> > Cocoon is missing this layer of abstraction. The cocoon jar file
> > should be packed with classes abstracting things out so people who
> > don't know jack about Avalon can write a generator or action.
> > There should be a single jar (perhaps with contained jars) that I can
> > drop in some magic location and magically write cocoon apps.
> > Configuring it should be a matter of minutes (if at all) not a matter
> > of hours to understand. I don't care about setting the properties
> > of the WML serializer. I'm not even going to use the WML
> > serializer. My goal is to snap together a web site, route it
> > through cocoon with my own sitemap and pipeline and go. Anything I
> > don't specify or configure should DEFAULT to pre-configured settings.
>
> Well, I don't know if completely hiding the existence of avalon from a
> developer
> creating a Generator or Action is a reasonable expectation, but it is
> reasonable
> to expect that in a short sitting you could get the basic concepts that are
> crucial in writing Cocoon components. Please note that most users that I
> see on the
> list don't in fact know anything about Avalon, but they are not trying to
> write
> Generators or Actions from scratch. There are a few concepts that have been
> introduced to facilitate that:
>
> 1) XSP. I didn't like this at first but have grown to love it. It is
> really like JSP in the simplicity of use.
> 2) The stock actions and generators. Again, I had to warm up to these, but
> there is a lot of power there. These don't exist at this point for EJB
> interaction, but do handle other things that are very common: database
> interaction, file system access, form validation etc.
>
> Trying to help you,
> Geoff Howard
>
>
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> Please check that your question has not already been answered in the
> FAQ before posting. <http://xml.apache.org/cocoon/faq/index.html>
>
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RE: Cocoon is complex, HOLD ON, WHY IS THIS BOILING UP ?
Posted by Geoff Howard <co...@leverageweb.com>.
> Java and C++ both have places to start. You can get a Hello World
> up in about 5 minutes.
I don't think you're asking for a "hello world". I did a hello world within
a
few minutes of first downloading cocoon a year ago. Put an xml file
somewhere.
Put an xsl file somewhere. In the main sitemap, put
<map:match pattern="hellothere.html">
<map:generate src="myxmlfile.xml"/>
<map:transform src="myxslfile.xsl"/>
<map:serialize/>
</map:match>
and you're done. You're a smart guy and you must have done this much by
now.
Where you go from there is different for everyone. You want to
do EJB's, some people want to stick with static xml files, some people want
relational
databases, some want xml databases, slide, etc. That's all very possible in
cocoon
but they are so different that it's made it tough so far to get the user
experience under control, as you've noticed.
What you've been asking for is legitimate but not currently easily
available.
I've heard you say:
1) Simple user experience. Well, that's a little subjective because of the
many
different needs people are bringing to the table but I think everyone here
would like
to see that too and value your input on where that's missing.
2) Smaller, more self contained war. I asked for that too when I started
with
cocoon and had to figure it out on my own unfortunately. I sat down earlier
and went
through the steps of the build from source taking out everything optional
and wrote them down for you and the greater good in the wiki. The war I
built is less than 5 meg, and worked right away. If you're using jdk1.4 I
can send you the war.
The longer term solution is being worked on and has come a long way
already from 2.0.x but it's in 2.1 which is just getting to alpha stage, and
so not appropriate for your needs yet.
3) The complaint about the number of jars I understand less, unless it was
related to cutting out what it unnecessary. That can be overwhelming, but
the minimal build I've described and may one day be included in the
distribution has only what it needs, so you just leave the jars in there.
It does have 28 jar files in WEB-INF/lib (about half of what the full
version has) which sounds like a lot, but I don't yet understand your
concern there. Cocoon has a sophisticated component based architecture. If
a bug surfaces in the source resolving component, you will probably be able
to drop in a replacement for that jar and not have to worry about the rest
of Cocoon. You can jar those all up together in one big collection if you
want for convenience if you need to start mingling them with other things.
> If you take the attitude "don't let the
> door hit you in the ass on the way out," then people will head
> out and make sure the aforementioned door doesn't strike. This isn't
> a game. Its not a toy. Its not something that can be said "like
> it or leave it." Its a technology. And the other newbies to this
> product are likely not as tenacious as I am and will say "well to
> hell with it." Cocoon needs some SERIOUS work in the usability
> zone. No no, I don't expect to understand it in 12 hours. Don't
> be ridicules. I do expect to be able to make a start on
> understanding it in 12 hours though. Having Hello-World up in 12
> hours is not exactly a steep request.
You're right about the work needed for usability, which is why we're
trying to help. And you are helping us:
- What concepts specifically are the most confusing to you
from your perspective of just trying to get up and running now that
you've been looking around the available docs and samples (and where
are _they_ not much help)?
The wiki has been helping to get new documentation up quickly,
so whatever specific discussion we can have on the list will be of
almost immediate benefit to others that come after.
- EJB use is not well documented and not very "slick" at the moment, but I
for one have been wanting to take a look at it. Do you see yet how to
proceed, or can we help get you started? You could easily have a generator
spitting out xml from an ejb tonight if you'll ask specific questions and
provide more detail about what is unclear to you.
>
> If the users have to build from source, which is NEVER a
> straightforward process, they will take off and find something
> easier. Ant,
> for example, is massively extensible....
Obviously that's why the binary distributions are there. But as you've
pointed
out they are bloated for your deploying needs which is an excellent point I
think.
Follow the instructions I put up at the wiki or let me send you this war
file and
let me know if you think this is in the right direction.
> Right now I get the impression that if
> I ever did want to make my own generator, I would need to mount
> 50 jars into my NetBeans project. NOT AN OPTION. One jar, fine. 50,
> no.
I am not familiar enough with NetBeans to help you integrate there but maybe
someone else is. Still, have you looked at the tutorial on generators I
sent you a link to? The most complicated example there needs 4 jars on the
classpath. In case you missed it, it's here:
http://xml.apache.org/cocoon/tutorial/tutorial-generator.html
I've just noticed that there have been some changes to the way excalibur and
avalon are distributed since I wrote that, so there may now be a few more
jars (and the names have changed - I'll get back with the details in a few
minutes. The docs need to get updated there I think.)
> Cocoon is missing this layer of abstraction. The cocoon jar file
> should be packed with classes abstracting things out so people who
> don't know jack about Avalon can write a generator or action.
> There should be a single jar (perhaps with contained jars) that I can
> drop in some magic location and magically write cocoon apps.
> Configuring it should be a matter of minutes (if at all) not a matter
> of hours to understand. I don't care about setting the properties
> of the WML serializer. I'm not even going to use the WML
> serializer. My goal is to snap together a web site, route it
> through cocoon with my own sitemap and pipeline and go. Anything I
> don't specify or configure should DEFAULT to pre-configured settings.
Well, I don't know if completely hiding the existence of avalon from a
developer
creating a Generator or Action is a reasonable expectation, but it is
reasonable
to expect that in a short sitting you could get the basic concepts that are
crucial in writing Cocoon components. Please note that most users that I
see on the
list don't in fact know anything about Avalon, but they are not trying to
write
Generators or Actions from scratch. There are a few concepts that have been
introduced to facilitate that:
1) XSP. I didn't like this at first but have grown to love it. It is
really like JSP in the simplicity of use.
2) The stock actions and generators. Again, I had to warm up to these, but
there is a lot of power there. These don't exist at this point for EJB
interaction, but do handle other things that are very common: database
interaction, file system access, form validation etc.
Trying to help you,
Geoff Howard
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Re: Cocoon is complex, HOLD ON, WHY IS THIS BOILING UP ?
Posted by Robert Simmons <de...@arcor.de>.
Java and C++ both have places to start. You can get a Hello World up in about 5 minutes. If you take the attitude "don't let the
door hit you in the ass on the way out," then people will head out and make sure the aforementioned door doesn't strike. This isn't
a game. Its not a toy. Its not something that can be said "like it or leave it." Its a technology. And the other newbies to this
product are likely not as tenacious as I am and will say "well to hell with it." Cocoon needs some SERIOUS work in the usability
zone. No no, I don't expect to understand it in 12 hours. Don't be ridicules. I do expect to be able to make a start on
understanding it in 12 hours though. Having Hello-World up in 12 hours is not exactly a steep request.
If the users have to build from source, which is NEVER a straightforward process, they will take off and find something easier. Ant,
for example, is massively extensible. I still don't understand I all 2 years after using it. However I'm a user and not a developer
of it. Therefore I don't care to understand it. Yes, there is allot more in ant that I can use but I don't need it professionally
and I don't have time to get into things that I don't need. I have NEVER built ant from source. Nor tomcat, nor JBoss, nor any of
the other TOOLS I use to accomplish my job. A job that has nothing to do with developing and understanding the architecture of
cocoon. So there is a dichotomy you are missing. The line between the developer and the user. The USERS don't have time to learn
Avalon and cocoon and a billion other things. All of this detail should be HIDDEN from them. Right now I get the impression that if
I ever did want to make my own generator, I would need to mount 50 jars into my NetBeans project. NOT AN OPTION. One jar, fine. 50,
no.
Cocoon is missing this layer of abstraction. The cocoon jar file should be packed with classes abstracting things out so people who
don't know jack about Avalon can write a generator or action. There should be a single jar (perhaps with contained jars) that I can
drop in some magic location and magically write cocoon apps. Configuring it should be a matter of minutes (if at all) not a matter
of hours to understand. I don't care about setting the properties of the WML serializer. I'm not even going to use the WML
serializer. My goal is to snap together a web site, route it through cocoon with my own sitemap and pipeline and go. Anything I
don't specify or configure should DEFAULT to pre-configured settings.
So yell "get the hell out!" all you want. People will. And instead of cocoon winning the race and capturing the minds and hearts of
web publishers, it will be .NET. The whole .NET framework should teach you something. If its too complex to understand, it will
LOOSE no matter how good it is. When the new users go to .NET and put up hello-world in 20 minutes, cocoon wont have a chance. So
cocoon has really two options in my newbie opinion. 1) Start putting in that layer that attracts new users. 2) Die.
As for me personally, I'm already far behind schedule now. 2 days of dealing with this thing and getting nowhere. Ill give it a
couple more hours of consideration and if I still cant get a hello-world up without knowing a thing about the internal architecture,
I will move on and implement it all in JSP. Scoff all you want. But a JSP hello-world page I was able to get up and working in 15
minutes.
-- Robert
----- Original Message -----
From: "Antonio Gallardo" <ag...@agsoftware.dnsalias.com>
To: <co...@xml.apache.org>
Sent: Sunday, January 26, 2003 1:38 AM
Subject: Re: Cocoon is complex, HOLD ON, WHY IS THIS BOILING UP ?
> SAXESS - Hussayn Dabbous dijo:
> > And especially the newbies can give so valuable insight, even if they
> seem to be ignorant (they aren't ignorant at all. They are new to this
> !!!)
>
> Yes I know this point, but for this reason you cannot just come here and
> after 12 hours, start attacking something you dont know. This is the worng
> way. In place you can ask in another way.
>
> Also, everyone of us had the same problem and feel when we started at
> Cocoon. This is crazy, my first question was: "When can I start?".
>
> But this is not a good approach sign-in on the mail list and start
> commenting about this. If you wish a well documented framework wait for
> the release of MS .NET of mid 2005 and maybe at that time you will have
> something that will looks that the current version of Cocoon. Of course
> Cocoon in that time will be light-years ahead! I am not joking. MS already
> has started a few months ago a similar project in the .NET arena.
>
> In the OpenSources the things goes a diferent way. This is not a company
> where are people getting money to support you. Then the less you can do is
> thanks people that use his time to help you. How you will fell if somebody
> stop you at the street and start attacking you just because you dont know
> where is the street called "X"? This is ridiculous, right? I think some
> people here had the same feel.
>
> Nobody is forced to convince you stay and for tis reason I better stay
> away of this class of thread. If he does not want to get this nice stuff.
> His problem, not mine. ;-) But I bet he will come back. I saw it many
> times in the timeline.....
>
> At the end,
>
> I remember the times when some people was attacking GUI, just because
> there does not understand it. It was at my students days..... Some
> collegues told things like:
>
> "Windows 3.1 requiere too many recurses and is so slow. This will never be
> a good stuff" At that time (1992) a 286 with 1 MB and HD 40 MB was a super
> computer for a student like us. i386 was the Opteron of these days (the
> new 32-bits technology - wow!, like now is the transition to the new
> 64-bits technology - wow again! :-).
>
> I remember one teacher that told:
>
> "You think you are the 'great boys' just because you can open 30 windows
> in your PC. I dont want to waste my eyes burning it with 640*468 pixel
> lightning at my eyes!"
>
> Behind his back we joking if he has a room at his house with his own
> saloon computer all just for him!". Because for him our computers was toys
> and nothing more.
>
> Maybe you will be loling about this comments. But this was what we meet at
> the University at my times. People that all the time used text terminal
> and with the GUI revolution just starting they does not understand what
> happens around and just attacking GUI.
>
> Another example of this, the long discusion about if Java will survive or
> not? We have C and C++!
>
> Well, we are know at the doors of the Web revolution called XML. Please
> open your eyes!
>
> Best Regards,
>
> Antonio Gallardo
>
> >
> > Maybe we should calm down a bit and take this thread really
> > serious. It contains much of material to think about.
> > And in many senses the criticism here can't be discussed
> > away.
>
> I never got angry. I agree.
>
> Antonio Gallardo.
>
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> Please check that your question has not already been answered in the
> FAQ before posting. <http://xml.apache.org/cocoon/faq/index.html>
>
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: <co...@xml.apache.org>
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Re: Cocoon is complex, HOLD ON, WHY IS THIS BOILING UP ?
Posted by Antonio Gallardo <ag...@agsoftware.dnsalias.com>.
SAXESS - Hussayn Dabbous dijo:
> And especially the newbies can give so valuable insight, even if they
seem to be ignorant (they aren't ignorant at all. They are new to this
!!!)
Yes I know this point, but for this reason you cannot just come here and
after 12 hours, start attacking something you dont know. This is the worng
way. In place you can ask in another way.
Also, everyone of us had the same problem and feel when we started at
Cocoon. This is crazy, my first question was: "When can I start?".
But this is not a good approach sign-in on the mail list and start
commenting about this. If you wish a well documented framework wait for
the release of MS .NET of mid 2005 and maybe at that time you will have
something that will looks that the current version of Cocoon. Of course
Cocoon in that time will be light-years ahead! I am not joking. MS already
has started a few months ago a similar project in the .NET arena.
In the OpenSources the things goes a diferent way. This is not a company
where are people getting money to support you. Then the less you can do is
thanks people that use his time to help you. How you will fell if somebody
stop you at the street and start attacking you just because you dont know
where is the street called "X"? This is ridiculous, right? I think some
people here had the same feel.
Nobody is forced to convince you stay and for tis reason I better stay
away of this class of thread. If he does not want to get this nice stuff.
His problem, not mine. ;-) But I bet he will come back. I saw it many
times in the timeline.....
At the end,
I remember the times when some people was attacking GUI, just because
there does not understand it. It was at my students days..... Some
collegues told things like:
"Windows 3.1 requiere too many recurses and is so slow. This will never be
a good stuff" At that time (1992) a 286 with 1 MB and HD 40 MB was a super
computer for a student like us. i386 was the Opteron of these days (the
new 32-bits technology - wow!, like now is the transition to the new
64-bits technology - wow again! :-).
I remember one teacher that told:
"You think you are the 'great boys' just because you can open 30 windows
in your PC. I dont want to waste my eyes burning it with 640*468 pixel
lightning at my eyes!"
Behind his back we joking if he has a room at his house with his own
saloon computer all just for him!". Because for him our computers was toys
and nothing more.
Maybe you will be loling about this comments. But this was what we meet at
the University at my times. People that all the time used text terminal
and with the GUI revolution just starting they does not understand what
happens around and just attacking GUI.
Another example of this, the long discusion about if Java will survive or
not? We have C and C++!
Well, we are know at the doors of the Web revolution called XML. Please
open your eyes!
Best Regards,
Antonio Gallardo
>
> Maybe we should calm down a bit and take this thread really
> serious. It contains much of material to think about.
> And in many senses the criticism here can't be discussed
> away.
I never got angry. I agree.
Antonio Gallardo.
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Re: Cocoon is complex, HOLD ON, WHY IS THIS BOILING UP ?
Posted by SAXESS - Hussayn Dabbous <da...@saxess.com>.
I wonder why sometimes when it comes to criticism of cocoon
the arguments fly higher and higher until someone gets
really pissed of and angry ...
And why is it so many times a newbie who becomes the center
of this game ? (Also one of my first newbie questions boiled
up beyond the limits, but i'm still there ...)
Please dont missunderstand me. In general i think the comunity
takes care of many many questions and very valuable information
is flowing around, but we also should take special care about any
strong criticism on cocoon. And especially the newbies can give
so valuable insight, even if they seem to be ignorant (they
aren't ignorant at all. They are new to this !!!)
Maybe we should calm down a bit and take this thread really
serious. It contains much of material to think about.
And in many senses the criticism here can't be discussed
away.
regards, hussayn
--
Dr. Hussayn Dabbous
SAXESS Software Design GmbH
Neuenhöfer Allee 125
50935 Köln
Telefon: +49-221-56011-0
Fax: +49-221-56011-20
E-Mail: dabbous@saxess.com
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Re: Thanks for the book!
Posted by Lajos <lm...@galatea.com>.
Thanks Antonio! We appreciate the comments and look forward to reading
your review.
Regards,
Lajos
Antonio Gallardo wrote:
> Hi Lajos!
>
> I just write you because I got your book on Jan, 20th and is the best of
> the three about Cocoon 2. Thanks again to you and Jeremy. You are really
> good writers!
>
> I promise to post a review on amazon.com since there still are no one review.
>
> Best Regards,
>
> Antonio Gallardo.
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> Please check that your question has not already been answered in the
> FAQ before posting. <http://xml.apache.org/cocoon/faq/index.html>
>
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: <co...@xml.apache.org>
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>
>
--
Lajos Moczar
----------------------------------------
Open Source Support, Consulting and Training
----------------------------------------
Cocoon Developer's Handbook
(www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0672322579)
_ _____
/ \ /
/___\ /
/ \ /____
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Thanks for the book!
Posted by Antonio Gallardo <ag...@agsoftware.dnsalias.com>.
Hi Lajos!
I just write you because I got your book on Jan, 20th and is the best of
the three about Cocoon 2. Thanks again to you and Jeremy. You are really
good writers!
I promise to post a review on amazon.com since there still are no one review.
Best Regards,
Antonio Gallardo.
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Re: Cocoon is complex, but worth it! Some Answers to your dilemma
Posted by Robert Simmons <de...@arcor.de>.
> Hi Robert -
>
> Ok, my turn to weigh in.
>
> First off, one first principle about any technology is that it's
> usability and suitability are largely subjective. Over the years, I have
> found that many technologies - JSP, EJBs, PHP, Perl/CGI, ActiveX, etc. -
> can work great if YOU like them and know how to use them EFFECTIVELY.
> And the same holds absolutely true with Cocoon. Sometimes you like it,
> sometimes you don't. For some jobs it rocks, for others a simpler
> approach will get the job done as well, if not better. THERE IS NO
> OBJECTIVE RIGHT OR WRONG. Put it another way, you cannot compare Cocoon
> with ActiveX, Perl, JSP or anything else - it is all apples and oranges.
>
> Though I'm a Cocoon book author, I can tell you I myself sometimes get
> fairly pissed with Cocoon. Only recently I was coding up a simple,
> though lengthy, form in Cocoon using an XSP with the formval logicsheet,
> when I started getting an error that I was exceeding 66535 (or whatever)
> bytes for a method. Grrrrr. Luca will affirm that I was not feeling too
> kindly towards Cocoon that week. But in the end, (thanks to his
> client-side validation mechanism) I recoded and am fairly happy with the
> result. Should I have chosen Cocoon for this? Maybe not, actually. I
> probably put in more hours with this project than I would have using a
> JSP. But now that I'm done, I can modify the form to fit the client's
> changing needs much more easily than had I used a JSP. On the other
> hand, when I added credit-card capabilities to my site, I never even
> once considered Cocoon - I rolled a servlet with my own helper objects
> and am totally satisfied with the result. Point is, Cocoon is no magic
> bullet but then again, nothing is.
>
> You make an excellent point that I have to agree with: it is hard to
> separate the Cocoon developer from the Cocoon user. To put it another
> way, you have to be prepared to be a bit of a Cocoon developer to be an
> effective Cocoon user. Frankly, yes, that can be a deterent to adoption.
Yes, that is a deterrent to adoption. The strange thing is that it can be
easily fixed imho. What im talkign about is componetizing the distribution.
Hide anything the user doesnt need to routinely play with. The cocoon.xconf
file for example. I hear that I shouldnt be touching it. Fine, put it away in
a jar. Make it include any local user override of that file (via simple XML
include mechanism) and put the defaults away. Package the jars all into one
and label it cocoon-all.jar. In the online docs it would say "well drom the
cocoon-all.jar into your tomcat lib directory or in your war and off you go".
What we are talkign aobut isrepackaging. Some ant work. some config work and
thats it. Low budget solutions to high budget issues. Then what a user sees
when he gets to cocoon.war is something like the following (in XML notation):
<quote>
Getting Started guide:
To get started in cocoon you need to download the cocoon distribution war.
Inside the lib directory you will find cocoon-all.jar This is the core cocoon
classes and everythign you need to start developing with cocoon. Included as
well is the cocoon-dev.jar. This file contains the developer interfaces to
cocoon, such as for creating custom generators, and nothing else. It is
provided as a convenience means for developers to compile their custom
genrators and other extensions without havign to deal with the entire
cocoon-all.jar.
Inside the full kitchen sink version of cocoon.war we have the entire cocoon
web site represented. It contains numerous examples and documentation. What
is important to know is that the only files you really need are
WEB-INF/lib/cocoon-all.jar WEB-INF/web.xml, a sitemap, and your own stuff. So
your basic cocoon application war would look like the following
<war-file>
<directory name="WEB-INF">
<directory name="lib">
<file name="cocoon-all.jar"/>
</directory>
<file name="web.xml"/>
</directory>
sitemap.xmap
</war-file>
The cocoon-all.jar could alternatively be placed in the lib directory of
Tomcat if you dont wish to have it in every one of your war files. In
addition it should be noted that it is rare that you will have to modify the
web.xml. Remember that cocoon *IS* the servlet. You are merely extending that
servlet with your own content and potentially special classes. You may have
to create a deployment descriptor for your specific application server if the
need arises, but the web.xml is somethign you should only rarely modify.
The sitemap is the core of the cocoon process. it describes how the data
flows from generation through to serialization. It is through defiining
sitemaps that we map URLs to these various pipelines. For example a single
url might be mapped to take mycompany.xml and use an XSL sheet to translate
it into HTML. Another URL might be mapped to a pipeline that converts that
same XML sheet to WML for display on phones.
So, lets get a minimal distribution of this thing running.
Start off by creating the above structure. For your first sitemap put in the
following ..... <include hello world sitemap/> now create the following two
files. Firs an XML file with our greeting. <include hello.xml/> finally
include the followign strlyesheet. <include hello.xsl/> Now Drop in the whole
war into your sevlet container (or deploy it in your application server) and
point your browser at the url. Viola. you not have your first hello-world
using cocoon. Now is where it really gets interesting ...
</quote>
If I had had that file when I started, I wouldnt have been raising holy hell
on the mailing list. People like to work incrementally. Get them started and
then off to the races.
> If you are under the gun to get some multi-output app up and you are
> looking at Cocoon stricly as a user of the technology yes, you might
> have to learn more than you bargined for.
Whap! You hit it right there. And thats exactly what im doing. Im under the
gun to get an interface that allows multi content publishing out the door (or
in my case in my book) and the internals of this interface as irrelevant to
the book. I simply want a web front end to a powerful server side EJB
application.
> But that is the nature of this
> particular beast, just like it is the nature of M$ products that you
> know next to nothing about how they operate (until you find yourself
> hacked through one of their many security holes). Again, you can't
> compare the two - apples and oranges.
Yep. So why do MS products do so well? because even though they are pieces of
garbage, they dont require anyone to buidl from source.
> Absolutely, Cocoon is complex, and large, which I personally don't care
> for. But the flip side is that you can also do many, many, many things
> with Cocoon. If you like such complexity and flexibility, and care to
> take the time to work through the materials at hand (like mine and
> Jeremy's book ;) ), you will be happy with the results.
Oh i intend to work through the materials at hand and get a book on it when I
have time. Right now I dont. I dont even have time to write all these mails
but I think cocoon has enough promise and is important enough to merit it.
> I also must agree with you and Hussayn about the business aspect of
> Cocoon. Having consulted at all layers of IT, I know what people look
> at. And yes, Cocoon can fall short for the reasons mentioned -
> usability, time-to-get-running, documentation, abstraction from details,
> separation of developer/user knowledge, etc. Business does judge
> harshly, though perhaps unfairly. Certainly, we serious users will all
> sneer if a pile of MS sh*t is taken more seriously than Cocoon. But,
> then again, there is a point. MS may have the usability (or perhaps the
> perception of usability) edge on Cocoon. But, here is the hard part, it
> is NO ONE'S JOB TO CHANGE THIS.
Not if you dont want to beat them. If you do then you have to realize that
corporate mentality will weigh it up like this.
"Microsoft .NET is shit but I can et it working in 5 days. It probably wont
explode in the year and a half average people have before they switch IT
jobs. Cocoon wouldnt explode long term at all but then I have to justify
taking 3 weeks to learn it. Heck with it, Ill go to .NET and let someone else
clean up the mess later."
Lusy attitude? Yep. True? Yep. The only way you smack these guys down is the
same way tomcat smacked down asp. They put out a product that was easy to use
AND had tons of features and stability. Thats why asp is grossly outnumbered
by jsp despite all MS's efforts. Thats why apache has tomahawked IES. You
take advantage of that "i need it working in 5 days" mentality and then put
on "oh as an aside, after you get cocoon working it will be so damn stable
that you will be the hero of the company:" Were talkign product survival
here. The battlefiedl of computing is littered with great products that didnt
do this.
> This freedom from accountability is both
> a strength and weakness of OSS in general. One the one hand, someone
> with a great idea can start something like Cocoon, but conversely there
> is no implicit responsibility to an end-user like you (and the others
> who periodically raise the same objections).
No, not at all. No responsibility. That does depend on your goals though
doesnt it? If you are writing a product for the heck of it, in your spare
time, cause your girl is on vacation, who cares. If you actually want people
to use this product in a business and to take over the niche the product
fills than you have a burning need to start thinkign about cold hard truth.
> If someone wants to position Cocoon for the big time and compete on the
> usability front with the big commercial software products, then that
> person/organization can do something about it. Many of the current
> developers and users of Cocoon don't need more than they have and are
> neither concerned nor required to be concerned with this debate.
The irony is that what I feel is needed probably boils down to a bit of ant
work and the above mentioned gettign started guide. I dont even think it
merits another project though there would be arguments for drop in jars for
various componets instead of lumping it all together. But hey, lets lump.
Lets just HIDE everythign the user doesnt need to see. Lets make a dev jar
for those generator writers. Lets make a minimal war target in the ant file
and put it up for FTP. Whammo. What we are asking for and at low cost. Im not
even remotely qualified to do it however. It would have to be someone who
knows cocoon intimately. And honestly I dotn want to do it. My primary
concern is y book that im writing. Im a ***WAY USER*** of cocoon. Not a
developer of it. And it is from this perspective that I come in. With a
little ant work, perhaps some work to hide the config files and only append
overriding files if a user decides to override settings, and a bit of
documentation, you have just transfomed cocoon from a way confusing animal to
a roraing tiger that is easy to deal with but ripe with potential.
> If you
> want to change it, put together a project - email me offline and let's
> talk. I love the idea. But that is the only way it will be done - nobody
> actually has the responsibility to do anything. No one involved with
> Cocoon has the job to capture "the minds and hearts of web publishers".
> If they don't want to, that's just fine. And if, as a result, some
> other products does end up capturing the minds and hearts of web
> publishers, that is fine too.
>
>
> Regards,
>
> Lajos
-- Robert
>
>
> --
>
>
>
> Lajos Moczar
> ----------------------------------------
> Open Source Support, Consulting and Training
> ----------------------------------------
> Cocoon Developer's Handbook
> (www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0672322579)
>
> _ _____
> / \ /
> /___\ /
> / \ /____
>
> http://www.galatea.com -- powered by AzSSL
>
>
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Re: Cocoon is complex, but worth it! Some Answers to your dilemma
Posted by Lajos <lm...@galatea.com>.
Hi Robert -
Ok, my turn to weigh in.
First off, one first principle about any technology is that it's
usability and suitability are largely subjective. Over the years, I have
found that many technologies - JSP, EJBs, PHP, Perl/CGI, ActiveX, etc. -
can work great if YOU like them and know how to use them EFFECTIVELY.
And the same holds absolutely true with Cocoon. Sometimes you like it,
sometimes you don't. For some jobs it rocks, for others a simpler
approach will get the job done as well, if not better. THERE IS NO
OBJECTIVE RIGHT OR WRONG. Put it another way, you cannot compare Cocoon
with ActiveX, Perl, JSP or anything else - it is all apples and oranges.
Though I'm a Cocoon book author, I can tell you I myself sometimes get
fairly pissed with Cocoon. Only recently I was coding up a simple,
though lengthy, form in Cocoon using an XSP with the formval logicsheet,
when I started getting an error that I was exceeding 66535 (or whatever)
bytes for a method. Grrrrr. Luca will affirm that I was not feeling too
kindly towards Cocoon that week. But in the end, (thanks to his
client-side validation mechanism) I recoded and am fairly happy with the
result. Should I have chosen Cocoon for this? Maybe not, actually. I
probably put in more hours with this project than I would have using a
JSP. But now that I'm done, I can modify the form to fit the client's
changing needs much more easily than had I used a JSP. On the other
hand, when I added credit-card capabilities to my site, I never even
once considered Cocoon - I rolled a servlet with my own helper objects
and am totally satisfied with the result. Point is, Cocoon is no magic
bullet but then again, nothing is.
You make an excellent point that I have to agree with: it is hard to
separate the Cocoon developer from the Cocoon user. To put it another
way, you have to be prepared to be a bit of a Cocoon developer to be an
effective Cocoon user. Frankly, yes, that can be a deterent to adoption.
If you are under the gun to get some multi-output app up and you are
looking at Cocoon stricly as a user of the technology yes, you might
have to learn more than you bargined for. But that is the nature of this
particular beast, just like it is the nature of M$ products that you
know next to nothing about how they operate (until you find yourself
hacked through one of their many security holes). Again, you can't
compare the two - apples and oranges.
Absolutely, Cocoon is complex, and large, which I personally don't care
for. But the flip side is that you can also do many, many, many things
with Cocoon. If you like such complexity and flexibility, and care to
take the time to work through the materials at hand (like mine and
Jeremy's book ;) ), you will be happy with the results.
I also must agree with you and Hussayn about the business aspect of
Cocoon. Having consulted at all layers of IT, I know what people look
at. And yes, Cocoon can fall short for the reasons mentioned -
usability, time-to-get-running, documentation, abstraction from details,
separation of developer/user knowledge, etc. Business does judge
harshly, though perhaps unfairly. Certainly, we serious users will all
sneer if a pile of MS sh*t is taken more seriously than Cocoon. But,
then again, there is a point. MS may have the usability (or perhaps the
perception of usability) edge on Cocoon. But, here is the hard part, it
is NO ONE'S JOB TO CHANGE THIS. This freedom from accountability is both
a strength and weakness of OSS in general. One the one hand, someone
with a great idea can start something like Cocoon, but conversely there
is no implicit responsibility to an end-user like you (and the others
who periodically raise the same objections).
If someone wants to position Cocoon for the big time and compete on the
usability front with the big commercial software products, then that
person/organization can do something about it. Many of the current
developers and users of Cocoon don't need more than they have and are
neither concerned nor required to be concerned with this debate. If you
want to change it, put together a project - email me offline and let's
talk. I love the idea. But that is the only way it will be done - nobody
actually has the responsibility to do anything. No one involved with
Cocoon has the job to capture "the minds and hearts of web publishers".
If they don't want to, that's just fine. And if, as a result, some
other products does end up capturing the minds and hearts of web
publishers, that is fine too.
Regards,
Lajos
--
Lajos Moczar
----------------------------------------
Open Source Support, Consulting and Training
----------------------------------------
Cocoon Developer's Handbook
(www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0672322579)
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Re: Cocoon is complex, but worth it! Some Answers to your dilemma
Posted by Robert Simmons <de...@arcor.de>.
> Robert Simmons dijo:
> >No professional dev wants, or has the time, to blow 2 to
> > three weeks just to get separation of logic and presentation.
>
> How you think a Professional developer do that? I ended my Master Degree
> in Computer Science in 1995 just before Java hits the streets and Windows
> 95 was just at beta release? How do you think I am here now?
>
> > Too high of a price for too little gain.
>
> Please if you said that phrase you dont really understand what is in the
> game. I recommend you to check how this little grain affect totally the
> Web machinery at all. I recommend you to read the second chapter of the
> Carsten Matthew book: XML: Building XML Applications. You can find it at
> amazon.com
Well, I dont think you understand the pressures in professional circles to meet deadlines. In the open source world, you have all
the time in the world to screw with things. When using a product in a working business deadlines get in the way of doing things the
"right" way. This is an explanation of why .NET has been successful. Its a cheap piece of garbage, but its easy to get started.
Noone wants to be an expert in 10 hours but they at leat want to have somethign of a clue.
>
> > Powerful? I believe you. I believe its powerful. Scalable? I don't know.
>
> Scalable? Please, just check JBoss.org and answer yourself the question.
>
> > The Wiki page runs very slow for me and a tutorial linked to me from the
> > IBM site (which was done in cocoon) was taking 10 to 15 seconds per page
> > to render.
>
> This is an issue for your computer and/or Internet connection.
I dont knwo the cuase but it isnt my isp.
> I live in
> Managua, Nicaragua. Maybe it is so far that you dont know where is it. But
> the wiki takes me less that 3 secs. Of course I use Red Hat Linux 8.0 and
> Mozilla that is faster than MS IE. Sometimes I go down and use a Windows
> machine, but I always use Mozilla, because it is faster.
>
> Check http://www.mozilla.org
>
Great. You like mozilla. Do me a favor and go out there and convince all the bluechip companies to switch. You may not like
microsoft but in a business world you have to deal with it. Whether that is bad or good is irrlevant.
>
> > Put that in production and your company can kiss sales
> > goodbye. Internet users are impatient and any guy with a DSL isn't going
> > to wait 15 seconds for your page.
>
> This is a developers issue, not a Cocoon issue. There are many books
> related about web design. How to improve performance using CSS, etc. Take
> a look at that technology and tell me how slow it is.
What CSS has to do with my question is beyond me.
>
> > User friendly? You've got to be joking.
>
> What? Cocoon? Well, here I think you must first understand the philosophy
> behind Cocoon and after that we can talk about that.
No no no. You arent gettign it. People dont WANT to understand the philosophy. Do I have to understand the JBoss development
philosophy to use it? Nope. What about Ant? Again nope. What about Tomcat? Agin the answer is no. You dont seem to be able to
separate the cocoon developer from the cocoon user. One is trying to contribute to the cocoon project but the rest of us just want
to use it to snap up a pipeline in 15 min. We honestly couldnt care less what the philosophy of its internal design is. Its
irrlevant to us. I get paid for makign applications for my company, not for learnign the concept of cocoon. If I have to learn the
philosophy behind how a tool is developed, that tool simply wont make the production schedule. Business life is hard. In addition,
according to object oriented philosophy, I shouldnt have to know the philosophy behind a tool. Cocoon should be a black box that i
can use to wire together sitemaps. The only time I need know anything is the interface I have to implement to design a new generator
and what xml file to declare it in. If someone asks me "how does cocoon work?" I should be able to say "beats me but it does." You
can bet that when .NET puts out their product it will be like that. Knowing Microsoft the product will be utter crap. However it
will trounce cocoon into the dust and people such as yourself will be staring at the carnage and saying "but WHY!!!???" The answer
is the same reason why many awesome technologies have never worked. They failed to attract interest and customers and never evolved.
> Windows makes us too lazy, we want to do all just clicking a mouse.
Welcome to business life reality. Your geek based (and I mean that as a complement) idealism jsut flat doesnt pay the bills.
> > No, I don't want to take up any more time from folks. I just simply
> > don't have the time to mess with it. Reading config files and figuring
> > out how the hell to build a new application just isn't what I want to do
> > a very trivial part of my project with.
>
> I will see you back again. Maybe the next year, how knows, but if you will
> stay at the development arena, you soon or late will be faced again with
> this technology. Please, Take a note of that.
Probably not. You have about the same amout of time to revolutionize cocoon to be an easy thing to use as it takes Microsoft to
write competition. Deal with it. Its a reality. If they put out a "cocoon" that is a piece of crap with half the functionality of
this one but weasy to use and deploy, than they will blast this product right out the market. Microsoft understands the need for
Jumpstarts and quick starts. If cocoon is to survive, it needs to change tactics fast. Away from "download nad build the source and
then do steps one through 600 and you will finally see a hello page." To, "well, run the ant install script with your tomcat
directory as a property, than biuld a new sie using the basic example and oyu should have a hello-world up in about 5 min."
Right now I just finished downloadign cocoon from cvs. The bloody source is 61 megs. That is a burning problem right there. One need
not go any further.
Now im not attacking your baby. Im merely pointing out the need to teach your baby some tricks.
>
> Best Regards,
>
> Antonio Gallardo.
--Robert
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Re: Cocoon is complex, but worth it! Some Answers to your dilemma
Posted by Antonio Gallardo <ag...@agsoftware.dnsalias.com>.
Robert Simmons dijo:
>No professional dev wants, or has the time, to blow 2 to
> three weeks just to get separation of logic and presentation.
How you think a Professional developer do that? I ended my Master Degree
in Computer Science in 1995 just before Java hits the streets and Windows
95 was just at beta release? How do you think I am here now?
> Too high of a price for too little gain.
Please if you said that phrase you dont really understand what is in the
game. I recommend you to check how this little grain affect totally the
Web machinery at all. I recommend you to read the second chapter of the
Carsten Matthew book: XML: Building XML Applications. You can find it at
amazon.com
> Powerful? I believe you. I believe its powerful. Scalable? I don't know.
Scalable? Please, just check JBoss.org and answer yourself the question.
> The Wiki page runs very slow for me and a tutorial linked to me from the
> IBM site (which was done in cocoon) was taking 10 to 15 seconds per page
> to render.
This is an issue for your computer and/or Internet connection. I live in
Managua, Nicaragua. Maybe it is so far that you dont know where is it. But
the wiki takes me less that 3 secs. Of course I use Red Hat Linux 8.0 and
Mozilla that is faster than MS IE. Sometimes I go down and use a Windows
machine, but I always use Mozilla, because it is faster.
Check http://www.mozilla.org
> Put that in production and your company can kiss sales
> goodbye. Internet users are impatient and any guy with a DSL isn't going
> to wait 15 seconds for your page.
This is a developers issue, not a Cocoon issue. There are many books
related about web design. How to improve performance using CSS, etc. Take
a look at that technology and tell me how slow it is.
> User friendly? You've got to be joking.
What? Cocoon? Well, here I think you must first understand the philosophy
behind Cocoon and after that we can talk about that.
Windows makes us too lazy, we want to do all just clicking a mouse.
> No, I don't want to take up any more time from folks. I just simply
> don't have the time to mess with it. Reading config files and figuring
> out how the hell to build a new application just isn't what I want to do
> a very trivial part of my project with.
I will see you back again. Maybe the next year, how knows, but if you will
stay at the development arena, you soon or late will be faced again with
this technology. Please, Take a note of that.
Best Regards,
Antonio Gallardo.
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Re: Cocoon is complex, but worth it! Some Answers to your dilemma
Posted by SAXESS - Hussayn Dabbous <da...@saxess.com>.
depending on what you are doing with cocoon, you get
quite amazing performance due to caching. My website
is completely done in XML and using cocoon. and its
almost as performant as with ordinary html. I was
really amazed when i saw this although the site is super
simple... http://www.saxess.de
I your use case is more complex, you are hitting databases
and creating dynamic data, you will allways suffer from
performance. This has nothing to do with cocon.
And if you talk about performace, you have to take into
account, what cocoon does under the hood (XSLT is always
a performance problem).
regards, hussayn
Robert Simmons wrote:
> Thanks for the reply. I still, however, cant figure out how to get a "hello world" working on a clean war without all of the other
> crap in the cocoon war. The configuration file is just plain staggering to say the least. And looking at some pages that use cocoon,
> I'm starting to have second thoughts about its performance in high traffic situation. Quite honestly I'm pretty close to saying
> "hell with it" and just coding the interface in JSP. Although it might be powerful, if it isn't easy, its trash. No professional dev
> wants, or has the time, to blow 2 to three weeks just to get separation of logic and presentation. Too high of a price for too
> little gain.
>
> Powerful? I believe you. I believe its powerful. Scalable? I don't know. The Wiki page runs very slow for me and a tutorial linked
> to me from the IBM site (which was done in cocoon) was taking 10 to 15 seconds per page to render. Put that in production and your
> company can kiss sales goodbye. Internet users are impatient and any guy with a DSL isn't going to wait 15 seconds for your page.
> User friendly? You've got to be joking.
>
> No, I don't want to take up any more time from folks. I just simply don't have the time to mess with it. Reading config files and
> figuring out how the hell to build a new application just isn't what I want to do a very trivial part of my project with.
>
> -- Robert
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "SAXESS - Hussayn Dabbous" <da...@saxess.com>
> To: <co...@xml.apache.org>
> Sent: Saturday, January 25, 2003 9:52 PM
> Subject: Re: Cocoon is complex, but worth it! Some Answers to your dilemma
>
>
>
>>I am with cocoon for about three months now and i remember
>>my own frustrations when i started as a newbie. From this
>>thread and other emails within this list and from my personal
>>experience with cocoon i conclude:
>>
>>1.) cocoon gains high (initial) attraction (many newbies questions)
>>2.) cocoon is not easy to apply by newbies (see this thread ;-)
>>3.) cocoon is far away from getting mature (focus on dev HEAD)
>> dont missunderstand me: i mean it's robust but complex,
>> fast evolving and ever changing ...
>>
>>But if you look under the hood you also find:
>>
>>4.) cocoon provides a very exciting technology.
>>5.) cocoon IS actively developed.
>>6.) cocoon attracts commercial interests (projects)
>>
>>
>>I assume everybody getting attracted to cocoon has some
>>ideas in mind what he/she wants to do with it, but after
>>opening the box it is (at first) hard to see how you could
>>gain from cocoon within your projects. And i think that
>>at least in commercial projects what counts is the amount
>>of time you need to get it mastered.
>>
>>
>>The (non developing) users seem to suffer from
>>
>>* undocumented features (wholes in documentation)
>>* complexity, even if the parts of interest
>> are well documented.
>>* huge amount of loosely coupled docs and documentation
>> sites.
>>* lack of "out of the box" applications that can be
>> used right from the initial installation (maybe
>> the cocoon portal is an exception, but it's also
>> really complex for the newbies, isn't it ?)
>>* functional overkill
>>* Lack of debugging facilities especially for sitemap
>> checking.
>>* very poor error reporting. You have to dig within tons of
>> stack traces to get a clue ... Sometimes you even get
>> no error report at all, it simply doesn't work.
>>
>>
>>But it is also true, that once you have mastered the
>>cocoon basics and once you start understanding how
>>things work, you suddenly get so much out of it,
>>that all your initial efforts get payed back.
>>
>>Because cocoon is something i really want to support,
>>i started a Wiki page that adresses some of the most
>>hearting issues. Hopefully this work can be
>>used (and improved) also by others:
>>
>>http://wiki.cocoondev.org/Wiki.jsp?page=SurvivalTips
>>
>>Besides this i recommend to have a look at the
>>"cocoon developer's handbook" (developer's library)
>>This book is now my "good companion" in the cocoon
>>adventure.
>>
>>Since i use cocoon within commercial projects i
>>had the oportunity to give away a small subproject
>>to one of the cocoon developers and i was really
>>positively surprised from the quality of the work
>>i got back. Hence i would recommend to all other
>>project managers out in the world:
>>
>>simply ask for support from the cocoon comunity and
>>i am shure, you will either get your problems
>>solved "on the fly" or you will find excellent experts
>>who will be happy to get involved in your projects as
>>freelancers...
>>
>>I hope that cocoon will master it's own future
>>and eventually become "the tomcat of XML-publishing"
>>
>>regards, Hussayn
>>
>>--
>>Dr. Hussayn Dabbous
>>SAXESS Software Design GmbH
>>Neuenhöfer Allee 125
>>50935 Köln
>>Telefon: +49-221-56011-0
>>Fax: +49-221-56011-20
>>E-Mail: dabbous@saxess.com
>>
>>
>>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>Please check that your question has not already been answered in the
>>FAQ before posting. <http://xml.apache.org/cocoon/faq/index.html>
>>
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>>For additional commands, e-mail: <co...@xml.apache.org>
>>
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
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>
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>
--
Dr. Hussayn Dabbous
SAXESS Software Design GmbH
Neuenhöfer Allee 125
50935 Köln
Telefon: +49-221-56011-0
Fax: +49-221-56011-20
E-Mail: dabbous@saxess.com
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Re: Cocoon is complex, but worth it! Some Answers to your dilemma
Posted by Steven Noels <st...@outerthought.org>.
Robert Simmons wrote:
> know. The Wiki page runs very slow for me and a tutorial linked to me
again: _what_ Wiki are you referring to? If it's
http://wiki.cocoondev.org/, please quantify how slow, so that I can get
a grip on it. That Wiki is built using plain JSP & taglibs, BTW. Nothing
to do with Cocoon.
</Steven>
--
Steven Noels http://outerthought.org/
Outerthought - Open Source, Java & XML Competence Support Center
Read my weblog at http://blogs.cocoondev.org/stevenn/
stevenn at outerthought.org stevenn at apache.org
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RE: Cocoon is complex, but worth it! Some Answers to your dilemma
Posted by Geoff Howard <co...@leverageweb.com>.
Try to follow the instructions at the following page I just created:
http://wiki.cocoondev.org/Wiki.jsp?page=CreateMinimalWebapp
Ignore the comments obviously geared at making this part of the build (and
possibly part of the release.)
You'll need a source distribution of Cocoon 2.0.4, which I know is not what
you wanted but this is where things are now.
Following that, you should be able to get a hello world up and running based
on the existing documentation within an hour at least, and you could be
writing your own Generators tonight if you follow the tutorial I already
sent you a link to.
Geoff Howard
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Robert Simmons [mailto:derisor@arcor.de]
> Sent: Saturday, January 25, 2003 4:10 PM
> To: cocoon-users@xml.apache.org
> Subject: Re: Cocoon is complex, but worth it! Some Answers to your
> dilemma
>
>
> Thanks for the reply. I still, however, cant figure out how to
> get a "hello world" working on a clean war without all of the other
> crap in the cocoon war. The configuration file is just plain
> staggering to say the least.
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Re: Cocoon is complex, but worth it! Some Answers to your dilemma
Posted by Robert Simmons <de...@arcor.de>.
Thanks for the reply. I still, however, cant figure out how to get a "hello world" working on a clean war without all of the other
crap in the cocoon war. The configuration file is just plain staggering to say the least. And looking at some pages that use cocoon,
I'm starting to have second thoughts about its performance in high traffic situation. Quite honestly I'm pretty close to saying
"hell with it" and just coding the interface in JSP. Although it might be powerful, if it isn't easy, its trash. No professional dev
wants, or has the time, to blow 2 to three weeks just to get separation of logic and presentation. Too high of a price for too
little gain.
Powerful? I believe you. I believe its powerful. Scalable? I don't know. The Wiki page runs very slow for me and a tutorial linked
to me from the IBM site (which was done in cocoon) was taking 10 to 15 seconds per page to render. Put that in production and your
company can kiss sales goodbye. Internet users are impatient and any guy with a DSL isn't going to wait 15 seconds for your page.
User friendly? You've got to be joking.
No, I don't want to take up any more time from folks. I just simply don't have the time to mess with it. Reading config files and
figuring out how the hell to build a new application just isn't what I want to do a very trivial part of my project with.
-- Robert
----- Original Message -----
From: "SAXESS - Hussayn Dabbous" <da...@saxess.com>
To: <co...@xml.apache.org>
Sent: Saturday, January 25, 2003 9:52 PM
Subject: Re: Cocoon is complex, but worth it! Some Answers to your dilemma
> I am with cocoon for about three months now and i remember
> my own frustrations when i started as a newbie. From this
> thread and other emails within this list and from my personal
> experience with cocoon i conclude:
>
> 1.) cocoon gains high (initial) attraction (many newbies questions)
> 2.) cocoon is not easy to apply by newbies (see this thread ;-)
> 3.) cocoon is far away from getting mature (focus on dev HEAD)
> dont missunderstand me: i mean it's robust but complex,
> fast evolving and ever changing ...
>
> But if you look under the hood you also find:
>
> 4.) cocoon provides a very exciting technology.
> 5.) cocoon IS actively developed.
> 6.) cocoon attracts commercial interests (projects)
>
>
> I assume everybody getting attracted to cocoon has some
> ideas in mind what he/she wants to do with it, but after
> opening the box it is (at first) hard to see how you could
> gain from cocoon within your projects. And i think that
> at least in commercial projects what counts is the amount
> of time you need to get it mastered.
>
>
> The (non developing) users seem to suffer from
>
> * undocumented features (wholes in documentation)
> * complexity, even if the parts of interest
> are well documented.
> * huge amount of loosely coupled docs and documentation
> sites.
> * lack of "out of the box" applications that can be
> used right from the initial installation (maybe
> the cocoon portal is an exception, but it's also
> really complex for the newbies, isn't it ?)
> * functional overkill
> * Lack of debugging facilities especially for sitemap
> checking.
> * very poor error reporting. You have to dig within tons of
> stack traces to get a clue ... Sometimes you even get
> no error report at all, it simply doesn't work.
>
>
> But it is also true, that once you have mastered the
> cocoon basics and once you start understanding how
> things work, you suddenly get so much out of it,
> that all your initial efforts get payed back.
>
> Because cocoon is something i really want to support,
> i started a Wiki page that adresses some of the most
> hearting issues. Hopefully this work can be
> used (and improved) also by others:
>
> http://wiki.cocoondev.org/Wiki.jsp?page=SurvivalTips
>
> Besides this i recommend to have a look at the
> "cocoon developer's handbook" (developer's library)
> This book is now my "good companion" in the cocoon
> adventure.
>
> Since i use cocoon within commercial projects i
> had the oportunity to give away a small subproject
> to one of the cocoon developers and i was really
> positively surprised from the quality of the work
> i got back. Hence i would recommend to all other
> project managers out in the world:
>
> simply ask for support from the cocoon comunity and
> i am shure, you will either get your problems
> solved "on the fly" or you will find excellent experts
> who will be happy to get involved in your projects as
> freelancers...
>
> I hope that cocoon will master it's own future
> and eventually become "the tomcat of XML-publishing"
>
> regards, Hussayn
>
> --
> Dr. Hussayn Dabbous
> SAXESS Software Design GmbH
> Neuenhöfer Allee 125
> 50935 Köln
> Telefon: +49-221-56011-0
> Fax: +49-221-56011-20
> E-Mail: dabbous@saxess.com
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> Please check that your question has not already been answered in the
> FAQ before posting. <http://xml.apache.org/cocoon/faq/index.html>
>
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: <co...@xml.apache.org>
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>
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Re: Cocoon is complex, but worth it! Some Answers to your dilemma
Posted by SAXESS - Hussayn Dabbous <da...@saxess.com>.
I am with cocoon for about three months now and i remember
my own frustrations when i started as a newbie. From this
thread and other emails within this list and from my personal
experience with cocoon i conclude:
1.) cocoon gains high (initial) attraction (many newbies questions)
2.) cocoon is not easy to apply by newbies (see this thread ;-)
3.) cocoon is far away from getting mature (focus on dev HEAD)
dont missunderstand me: i mean it's robust but complex,
fast evolving and ever changing ...
But if you look under the hood you also find:
4.) cocoon provides a very exciting technology.
5.) cocoon IS actively developed.
6.) cocoon attracts commercial interests (projects)
I assume everybody getting attracted to cocoon has some
ideas in mind what he/she wants to do with it, but after
opening the box it is (at first) hard to see how you could
gain from cocoon within your projects. And i think that
at least in commercial projects what counts is the amount
of time you need to get it mastered.
The (non developing) users seem to suffer from
* undocumented features (wholes in documentation)
* complexity, even if the parts of interest
are well documented.
* huge amount of loosely coupled docs and documentation
sites.
* lack of "out of the box" applications that can be
used right from the initial installation (maybe
the cocoon portal is an exception, but it's also
really complex for the newbies, isn't it ?)
* functional overkill
* Lack of debugging facilities especially for sitemap
checking.
* very poor error reporting. You have to dig within tons of
stack traces to get a clue ... Sometimes you even get
no error report at all, it simply doesn't work.
But it is also true, that once you have mastered the
cocoon basics and once you start understanding how
things work, you suddenly get so much out of it,
that all your initial efforts get payed back.
Because cocoon is something i really want to support,
i started a Wiki page that adresses some of the most
hearting issues. Hopefully this work can be
used (and improved) also by others:
http://wiki.cocoondev.org/Wiki.jsp?page=SurvivalTips
Besides this i recommend to have a look at the
"cocoon developer's handbook" (developer's library)
This book is now my "good companion" in the cocoon
adventure.
Since i use cocoon within commercial projects i
had the oportunity to give away a small subproject
to one of the cocoon developers and i was really
positively surprised from the quality of the work
i got back. Hence i would recommend to all other
project managers out in the world:
simply ask for support from the cocoon comunity and
i am shure, you will either get your problems
solved "on the fly" or you will find excellent experts
who will be happy to get involved in your projects as
freelancers...
I hope that cocoon will master it's own future
and eventually become "the tomcat of XML-publishing"
regards, Hussayn
--
Dr. Hussayn Dabbous
SAXESS Software Design GmbH
Neuenhöfer Allee 125
50935 Köln
Telefon: +49-221-56011-0
Fax: +49-221-56011-20
E-Mail: dabbous@saxess.com
---------------------------------------------------------------------
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