RE: [WDSCI-L] EARs and Jars continued

["Joe Pluta" <joepluta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> From: David Morris
>
> The functionality you describe is provided by Maven, which is open
> source
> and free. Most of the Jakarta projects are moving to Maven which uses
> a project description to define the relationships between various
> project
> files. You can find out more at: http://maven.apache.org/

It looks interesting David.  I didn't see any indication of plans for an
Eclipse plug-in, however.  So lacking that, this is a separate external
step.  So do I now abandon WDSC as my delivery mechanism and standardize on
a non-Eclipse solution?  What happens then if and when WDSC does decide to
include these features?

The world of Open Source, even within the Jakarta domain, is a scary one.
Pick the wrong standard, and you could be tool.  Look at Struts - how
compatible will it be with the new JavaServer Faces?  According to the
Struts/JSF man himself:

"In my JavaOne BOF on Struts (March, 2002), I made the statement that Struts
would have a very clean integration with JSF, so that you can use JSF
components in your user interface, but continue to use the controller,
Actions, and associated business logic. Indeed, I stated that it will be
possible to transition your application from using Struts HTML tags to using
Faces component tags, one page at a time -- in most cases, with zero changes
to the business logic or Action classes and minimal changes to the <forward>
elements in your struts-config.xml configuration file."

"in most cases" "possible" "transition" "one page at a time"

Sure sounds like a rewrite to me.  And I want to avoid something like that
with deployment like the plague.  The last thing I want is to have to revamp
my deployment process.

But still, I like what the Maven folks are doing.  It bears watching with
interest.

Joe