RE: [FormProc-developer] Re: Why FormProc? Was RE: [ANN] JPublish 0.8 Released

[Brad C. <bc...@vi...>]

At 10:58 PM -0500 2/16/02, Anthony Eden wrote:
>>  That's exactly why jwaa deals with entire websites statically. It was
>>  driving me nuts keeping all the stray bits straight with jsp and
>>  before that, perl.
>
>How do you deal with many developers working on the same site?  Do you
>have a centralized compile system or does everyone have to compile
>everything locally first?  Or both?

I use perforce, a commercial alternative to CVS. Each developer (just 
me currently) checks out a copy of the source, updates it each 
morning, and checks it back in each evening. Compiling the source 
(with jikes this is instantaneous) builds jars in that developers 
WEB-INF/lib or copies in unchanging jars (third party stuff, etc). 
Each developer runs an independent servlet instance during unit 
testing and shifts to a single one for integration testing.

Working with compiled jars has EXACTLY the same issues as 
configuration files for multiperson development.

>>  The whole flesibility argument has given me an abiding dislike for
>>  configuration "languages" as a solution to mutability/flesibility.
>>  There's a whole rant on this in one of the jwaa articles. Compile it
>>  with jikes and you get sensible error messages. Botch a configuration
>>  file and you get to debug exceptions from code you may not even have
>>  source for.
>
>That's why I love open source. ;-)  Another thing to consider: a good
>development cycle includes testing.  Thus, your testing should locate
>problems before going into production and you should be testing whether
>or not you compile, right?  So is the compiling still a necessary step?

Debugging other people's code is not my idea of fun, open source 
notwithstanding.

Compilers check static correctness, testing checks dynamic 
(behavioral) correctness. You need both.
-- 
Brad Cox, PhD; bc...@vi... 703 361 4751
o For industrial age goods there were checks and credit cards.
    For everything else there is http://virtualschool.edu/mybank
o Java Interactive Learning Environment http://virtualschool.edu/jile
o Java Web Application Architecture: http://virtualschool.edu/jwaa