[Rant] Flow + JXTemplate (Was: Re: [FYI] Stefano's Linotype)

[Tony Collen <tc...@neuagency.com>]

Alright, now that I'm fresh from a night of sleep, and I'm not all dizzy
and tired, I'll take another poke at this:

I'm starting to dig into actually using the Flow, and I'm having a hard
time understanding using the JXTemplate(Generator).

Rather, I'm having a hard time understanding why we need a templating
language inside our nice XSLT templating system.

>From a user's perspective, I already invested a lot of time learning XSLT
(and I do not even claim to be extremely comfortable with that, too!), so
why should I take the time to learn another templating language?  Argh!!
This was supposed to be easy, but now it feels like it's getting horribly
complex again.

It's nice the Generator is fast [1], but it still feels like it's doing
the work of a Generator and a Transformer, which pokes me in a weird way
for some reason.

Maybe I'm stupid, and just not seeing the advantages.

Last night, when I dove into all of the Flow stuff, I got to the point
to where I had to reference "bizData" in my view pages.  I was following
the patterns in Stefano's Linotype code, using <map:generate
type="jxpath"/>.  My problem then came around to where I couldn't even get
the Continuation ID, due to the difference between Stefano's code and the
JXTemplate(Generator) in CVS.

So I go looking for docs, and all I find is the Javadocs for JXTemplate,
but the Javadocs weren't built for the things in Scratchpad! Argh!

I digress.  It's been a long week and finals are about to hit.  I guess
I'm just frustrated at not having working samples and not getting the docs
for the JXTemplate(Generator).  Which reminds me.  I think the JXTemplate
generator in scratchpad should be named JXTemplateGenerator for
consistency's sake.

So here's my plea, can someone who's "in-the-know" about JXTemplate whip
up a nice sample that uses the tags (choose, import, etc) in a meaningful
and useful way for the annoying n00bs (me)?  Or perhaps another sample in
the Flow directory that correctly uses the new Generator?  .. I'll promise
to chill out, and get over the bump in complexity and having to learn
Yet Another Templating Language... hopefully sooner rather than later   :)


Regards,

Tony

[1] http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=xml-cocoon-dev&m=105029949912114&w=2

--
Tony Collen
ICQ: 12410567
--
Cocoon: Internet Glue (A Cocoon Weblog)
http://manero.org/weblog/
--

Re: [Rant] Flow + JXTemplate (Was: Re: [FYI] Stefano's Linotype)

[Tony Collen <tc...@neuagency.com>]

On Thu, 24 Apr 2003, Christopher Oliver wrote:

> Tony,
>
> You can find examples in the PetStore sample in the scratchpad.


Aha.  Cripes.   Thanks for the pointer.  I didn't mean to rip so hard into
the work you've done on the JXTemplate stuff.. I was getting at the end of
my rope.


Thanks again,

Tony

--
Tony Collen
ICQ: 12410567
--
Cocoon: Internet Glue (A Cocoon Weblog)
http://manero.org/weblog/
--

Re: [Rant] Flow + JXTemplate (Was: Re: [FYI] Stefano's Linotype)

[Christopher Oliver <re...@verizon.net>]

Tony,

You can find examples in the PetStore sample in the scratchpad.

Tony Collen wrote:

>Alright, now that I'm fresh from a night of sleep, and I'm not all dizzy
>and tired, I'll take another poke at this:
>
>I'm starting to dig into actually using the Flow, and I'm having a hard
>time understanding using the JXTemplate(Generator).
>
>Rather, I'm having a hard time understanding why we need a templating
>language inside our nice XSLT templating system.
>
>>>From a user's perspective, I already invested a lot of time learning XSLT
>(and I do not even claim to be extremely comfortable with that, too!), so
>why should I take the time to learn another templating language?  Argh!!
>This was supposed to be easy, but now it feels like it's getting horribly
>complex again.
>
>It's nice the Generator is fast [1], but it still feels like it's doing
>the work of a Generator and a Transformer, which pokes me in a weird way
>for some reason.
>
>Maybe I'm stupid, and just not seeing the advantages.
>
>Last night, when I dove into all of the Flow stuff, I got to the point
>to where I had to reference "bizData" in my view pages.  I was following
>the patterns in Stefano's Linotype code, using <map:generate
>type="jxpath"/>.  My problem then came around to where I couldn't even get
>the Continuation ID, due to the difference between Stefano's code and the
>JXTemplate(Generator) in CVS.
>
>So I go looking for docs, and all I find is the Javadocs for JXTemplate,
>but the Javadocs weren't built for the things in Scratchpad! Argh!
>
>I digress.  It's been a long week and finals are about to hit.  I guess
>I'm just frustrated at not having working samples and not getting the docs
>for the JXTemplate(Generator).  Which reminds me.  I think the JXTemplate
>generator in scratchpad should be named JXTemplateGenerator for
>consistency's sake.
>
>So here's my plea, can someone who's "in-the-know" about JXTemplate whip
>up a nice sample that uses the tags (choose, import, etc) in a meaningful
>and useful way for the annoying n00bs (me)?  Or perhaps another sample in
>the Flow directory that correctly uses the new Generator?  .. I'll promise
>to chill out, and get over the bump in complexity and having to learn
>Yet Another Templating Language... hopefully sooner rather than later   :)
>
>
>Regards,
>
>Tony
>
>[1] http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=xml-cocoon-dev&m=105029949912114&w=2
>
>--
>Tony Collen
>ICQ: 12410567
>--
>Cocoon: Internet Glue (A Cocoon Weblog)
>http://manero.org/weblog/
>--
>
>
>
>
>  
>

RE: [Rant] Flow + JXTemplate (Was: Re: [FYI] Stefano's Linotype)

[Reinhard Pötz <re...@gmx.net>]

Tony,

I recommend you to have a look at the Petstore. Christopher has done a
great job providing the examples in 4 different ways (jxpath, jexl, xsp
and velocity).

My first impression is that it looks very clear, simple and well-thought
to me: 
You control the flow using the Cocoon control flow and "send" data to
the pipeline which is responsible for the view using the object model.
Additionally you have access to some common objects like request or the
continuation (and some more). This data can be accessed with those 4
"languages" which provide some simple control structures like choose,
if, and some more.

And here Christopher compared the 4 languages:
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=xml-cocoon-dev&m=105029949912114&w=2

Hope this helps!

Cheers
Reinhard

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tony Collen [mailto:tcollen@neuagency.com] 
> Sent: Thursday, April 24, 2003 7:18 PM
> To: cocoon-dev@xml.apache.org
> Subject: [Rant] Flow + JXTemplate (Was: Re: [FYI] Stefano's Linotype)
> 
> 
> Alright, now that I'm fresh from a night of sleep, and I'm 
> not all dizzy and tired, I'll take another poke at this:
> 
> I'm starting to dig into actually using the Flow, and I'm 
> having a hard time understanding using the JXTemplate(Generator).
> 
> Rather, I'm having a hard time understanding why we need a 
> templating language inside our nice XSLT templating system.
> 
> From a user's perspective, I already invested a lot of time 
> learning XSLT (and I do not even claim to be extremely 
> comfortable with that, too!), so why should I take the time 
> to learn another templating language?  Argh!! This was 
> supposed to be easy, but now it feels like it's getting 
> horribly complex again.
> 
> It's nice the Generator is fast [1], but it still feels like 
> it's doing the work of a Generator and a Transformer, which 
> pokes me in a weird way for some reason.
> 
> Maybe I'm stupid, and just not seeing the advantages.
> 
> Last night, when I dove into all of the Flow stuff, I got to 
> the point to where I had to reference "bizData" in my view 
> pages.  I was following the patterns in Stefano's Linotype 
> code, using <map:generate type="jxpath"/>.  My problem then 
> came around to where I couldn't even get the Continuation ID, 
> due to the difference between Stefano's code and the
> JXTemplate(Generator) in CVS.
> 
> So I go looking for docs, and all I find is the Javadocs for 
> JXTemplate, but the Javadocs weren't built for the things in 
> Scratchpad! Argh!
> 
> I digress.  It's been a long week and finals are about to 
> hit.  I guess I'm just frustrated at not having working 
> samples and not getting the docs for the 
> JXTemplate(Generator).  Which reminds me.  I think the 
> JXTemplate generator in scratchpad should be named 
> JXTemplateGenerator for consistency's sake.
> 
> So here's my plea, can someone who's "in-the-know" about 
> JXTemplate whip up a nice sample that uses the tags (choose, 
> import, etc) in a meaningful and useful way for the annoying 
> n00bs (me)?  Or perhaps another sample in the Flow directory 
> that correctly uses the new Generator?  .. I'll promise to 
> chill out, and get over the bump in complexity and having to learn
> Yet Another Templating Language... hopefully sooner rather 
> than later   :)
> 
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Tony
> 
> [1] 
> http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=xml-> cocoon-dev&m=105029949912114&w=2
> 
> --
> Tony Collen
> ICQ: 12410567
> --
> Cocoon: Internet Glue (A Cocoon Weblog) http://manero.org/weblog/
> --
> 
> 
>