Re: [Asterisk-java-users] OT: Asterisk billing development

[Stefan R. <ste...@re...>]

Hi,

nice to hear about more future source projects embrassing Asterisk-Java.

> Sorry for sending mail to this list but I find that the people
> participating in this list would be appropriate to ask.

No problem at all, the list has really low traffic recently any way so
encouraging users to take part in a discussion is always a good idea.

> Here are the technologies i am planning to use... Struts 2.0.1, tomcat 5.5,
> asterisk-java, hibernate, postgres 8.x, Jreports or Jasper Reports,
> sitemesh, quartz and integration with paypal using paypal apis, etc... 

First I would like to distinguish between internal and external
dependencies with internal dependencies being the libraries you us
within you war and external dependencies being the requirements you put
on users of your product.

Internal dependencies will on affect the developers supporting you while
external dependencies are crucial to the success of your project
regarding user adoption.

As far as I can see your external dependencies are:
JDK (or JRE)
Servlet Container
Database

Depending on JDK 5 should be safe these days, especially as you are
starting a new project. Remember though that you already rule out about
90% of the users just by choosing Java though thats another topic ;)

Regarding the servlet container I would rather like to depend on a Java
Servlet specification than on a specific implementation. Depending on
Servlet API >=2.4 allows users of Tomcat 5.x, 6.x, Resin and whatever to
use your product plus it encourages you to follow the spec.

Brett already raised the database issue. Postgres is nice but it will
rule out another 80% of the 10% users willing to use Java. You already
chose Hibernate so why not designing your application to support a broad
range of databases like MySQL, Postgres, Oracle, ...? It shouldn't be
too hard to refuse to use database specific constructs that are not yet
handled by Hibernate.

Regarding your internal dependencies I think you are pretty free to use
whatever you are comfortable with. I would prefer using Spring Framework
as IoC container and Spring Webflow for the page flows but those are
really minor design decisions.

> I have a rough design and plan and need people and inputs...

Would you mind to publish it? :)

> Please let me know your thoughts...we can start this as sourceforge
> project.. Stefan - I need your thoughts on this...

Another last thought is about the license. I am a strong supporter of
the Apache License as it is broadly accepted and allows for inclusion in
commercial application which might be what you intend or not.

=Stefan

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