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From: Kai S. <sch...@cs...> - 2005-04-23 13:36:03
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Hello, This is a quick status report on the Nectar WebServices project. We're currently in the process of writing a lot of new documentation, and so it seemed a fitting time to also write up this report and send it to our mailing lists. --- Status Nectar is still, and will be for a while, considered by it's creator to be an early prototype. Much of the main API is still evolving and changing, so developpers should only use Nectar for prototypes, not "serious development". Even during the massive transformations that Nectar is currently going through (see Recent Changes below), it can run websites in decent stability. Nectar has been used as a base for ACID, a chemical inventory storage system for universities' chemistry departments. ACID, while only a prototype, has received a lot of praise for it's easy going, yet very strict design, as well as for it's fundamental features of robustness and security. ACID could not have been built the way it was without the base of Nectar. The last release of Nectar dates back to September 2004, and is rudely out of date. The current code is very different and undergoing heavy changes still. The next release of Nectar will not come for at least a few more months, and the CVS server is currently closed to the public, until we figure out a better licensing system. Any developpers interested in looking at the code should contact Kai Schutte (sch...@cs...) for access to the CVS server (read Licensing Issues, below). --- People Currently, the developpers of Nectar are Kai Schutte and Royce Ausburn. We are hoping for more people to join us, as our volunteer and restricted schedules severely limit the amount of time we are able to work on the project. --- Goals The primary goal of Nectar hasn't changed: to provide a robust, secure and scalable web application platform, that remains highly extensible through a very simple but strict design. Our current goals are: - to make the Nectar code base more easily available by designing a common build system, which would allow all potential developpers to download the code, then modify and build (compile) it without much delay or complications. - to clearly define extension design. We aim to make extensions extremely portable, up to the point where a system running Nectar can simply download and run an extension without user interaction, nor even requiring a restart of the Nectar programme. - to simplify the design of Query's and the DataAdapterSerivce, so as to allow very small amounts of code in the Action classes to do a very large amount of work. (see More Info: Data Services section below) - to add Java 1.5.0 Generics support to the base distribution, which will simplify and rigidify a lot of the base code, as well as it's API. Java 1.4.0 code will still be compatible, but will give many warnings. (see http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/guide/language/generics.html for more info on Generics) - to start building a foundation for the clustering system. This means ripping out much of the Struts and Servlet dependancies (you'll be able to run Nectar as a standalone app!), then designing and implementing a communication framework that would allow several Nectar nodes to run a single project. - to build up documentation, primarily through a wiki, which is now online at http://nectar.sourceforge.net/ - to integrate Dynamic Forms (so you don't have to write a Form class for every Action). - to support Python as an Action and Form writing language! Python scripts will run as an interpreted language they will be stored in the database, so developpers could edit Actions directly over the web, without compilation or anything! - to move validation checks to the database, and implement tools to configure validation checks. - to allow Nectar to restart "softly", meaning that it should block all requests, clear out all it's memory, and restart afresh (re - reading configurations) and start processing requests again without any downtime (unless the request queue overflows). - to replace the current commons-logging interface with something inhouse that would store log events to the database, and use the same system to log requests and user actions, paving the groundwork for an activity tracking extension. - to define a universal data definition schema that would describe Record storage settings for SQL and OODBMS, and any other future DataAdapaterService implementation. This schema needs to be machine parsable and translatable to a series of commands to create this definition in SQL, OODMS or whatever else. This schema also needs to be used to convert actual data from one implementation to another. -- Major Recent Changes - Page configuration is now entirely in the database. An online page configuration tool is yet to be written. - Message Resources are now in the database. - Query Caching is nearly ready, but is waiting for major changes in the data services to go live. Record Caching works fine as usual. - Asynchronous queries: in actions you can now launch many independant queries, let some other code execute, then "pick up" the results from your queries in any order. - Multiple projects on a single server now work as they should, but configuration is difficult until a page configuration tool is written. - The Reda Administration tool is very broken at the moment, and won't get much loving for a while. - The web page generating code which used to be part of the base distribution has been moved to a base extension, which will be released under a totally free license (free to re-release under any license). -- Licensing Issues The main reason why we are currently not planning to make a new release is that we are looking for the right licenses to release different parts of Nectar. We do want to keep Nectar as open as possible, especially for non-commercial users. We also want to be able to provide a ton of sample code under a completely free license, allowing republishing under any license (including the most restrictive types). Finally, we do want to receive a small compensation from any systems that use Nectar for profit, either through direct use or from reselling the hosting of Nectar, in order to allow us to continue working on the project. We are looking at a variety of licenses at the moment, but in the end, we would need a lawyer / businessperson specializing in the field to guide us. The next release of Nectar will be under a new set of licenses that match our goal, which is to build a project that is very open and useful, but in the end can help us financially, to develop and market the project further, without hindering a not-for-profit base of users. -- More Information The official website of the Nectar WebServices project is a Wiki, located at http://nectar.sourceforge.net/ To receive intermittent updates about the project, you may join the nectar-announce mailing list at http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/nectar-announce To receive general developper communication about the project, you can join the nectar-devel mailing list at http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/nectar-devel (note that all announce messages are crossposted to the devel list, so no need to subsribe to both) Finally, you may contact the main programmers directly, Kai Schutte at sch...@cs..., or Royce Ausburn at aus...@cs.... - The Nectar WebServices Team. |