plans for avalon-components

["Farr, Aaron" <Aa...@am.sony.com>]

Hello.

Okay, so all of cornerstone is in avalon-components.  What about excalibur?
Is that going to eventually be moved into avalon-components or are we going
to keep the two repositories separate?  

Moreover, for components, we have the following package structures:

org.apache.avalon.cornerstone.blocks
org.apache.avalon.cornerstone.services
org.apache.avalon.excalibur
org.apache.excalibur

For _new_ components, what should we use?  Excalibur?  Cornerstone?
Something different like
  
  org.apache.avalon.components
or
  org.apache.avalon.services

Perhaps we should have a set of guidelines for component writers?
 
J. Aaron Farr
  SONY ELECTRONICS
  DDP-CIM
  (724) 696-7653

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Re: plans for avalon-components

[Leo Simons <le...@apache.org>]

Farr, Aaron wrote:
> Hello.
> 
> Okay, so all of cornerstone is in avalon-components.  What about excalibur?
> Is that going to eventually be moved into avalon-components or are we going
> to keep the two repositories separate?  

background
----------
our initial plan was simple:

1 - move utility code inside excalibur out to commons
2 - move container code inside excalibur to the main avalon cvs
3 - move components inside excalibur to the components cvs

Reasons for that plan were simple as well: our organisation is in a 
rather permanent structural mess, and flux. That led to various problems 
in the past.

so far...
---------
(2) has partially happened (fortress lives in the main repo). Not 
completely, since some of the code in excalibur is only really useful in 
building avalon containers but not closely coupled to any particular 
container (excalibur-configuration, excalibur-logger).

(1) has partially happened, but not fully completed, since we have some 
utility code which is intrinsically avalon-specific, some utility code 
that has a suitable-but-not-quite-1-to-1 replacement in commons already, 
etc etc. Basically the commons people are rightfully picky of what stuff 
they accept and getting some of the excalibur stuff accepted will be 
difficult.

(3) has not happened because there exists overlap between some excalibur 
components and some of the cornerstone components (ie, "store"). Our 
initial response was "so, merge them", but that is not as simple as it 
sounds (backwards compatibility, incompatible featuresets, etc etc)

now what?
---------
You tell me. Whatever needs to happen, its boring work :/. The first 
step seems getting our website, which is just as structurally in a mess 
(only periodically fixed), up-to-date with information about what 
components we have and the essentials surrounding those components.

> [package structure]?

I would recommend against anything new. It will just add to confusion. I 
would suggest

org.apache.avalon.cornerstone.{blah} (api and/or spi)
org.apache.avalon.cornerstone.{blah}.impl (implementation)

or

org.apache.excalibur.{blah}
org.apache.excalibur.{blah}.impl

> Perhaps we should have a set of guidelines for component writers?

IMNSHO we are not fit for adding new components until we get the 
existing stuff into shape. It doesn't serve well to point fingers at 
anyone (if someone does feel the urge, feel free to point at me though 
:D), but I have little reason to believe we'll start doing a better job 
in the management of this stuff than we have historically.

Sorry to be so cynical, but I really think we should focus on getting 
our 'older' stuff into the same quality range as recent releases like 
merlin before focussing on 'new'. That, or just accept many components 
are 'stale' and treat them as such. Which has other downsides.

cheers!

- Leo



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Re: plans for avalon-components

[Stephen McConnell <mc...@apache.org>]

Farr, Aaron wrote:

>Hello.
>
>Okay, so all of cornerstone is in avalon-components.  What about excalibur?
>Is that going to eventually be moved into avalon-components or are we going
>to keep the two repositories separate?  
>

There are some things in Excalibur that are simply not components.  For 
example, i18n and confiuration are pure utilities.  If think these 
rightly belong under Excalibur and that Excalibiur should remain for 
this purpose.

>
>
>Moreover, for components, we have the following package structures:
>
>org.apache.avalon.cornerstone.blocks
>org.apache.avalon.cornerstone.services
>org.apache.avalon.excalibur
>org.apache.excalibur
>
>For _new_ components, what should we use?  Excalibur?  Cornerstone?
>Something different like
>  
>  org.apache.avalon.components
>or
>  org.apache.avalon.services
>

Just thinking ..... is there any reason why we don't simply stick
with "Cornerstone" and the cornerstone package name? This would
lead to just more focus on what we have as opposed to changing
things around. Excalibur for our utility code; Cornerstone as the
avalon component suite; and Avalon is the framework and
containment solution.

>
>Perhaps we should have a set of guidelines for component writers?
>

I agree.

Steve.

> 
>J. Aaron Farr
>  SONY ELECTRONICS
>  DDP-CIM
>  (724) 696-7653
>
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>To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscribe@avalon.apache.org
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>
>  
>

-- 

Stephen J. McConnell
mailto:mcconnell@apache.org




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