Re: [Springframework-developer] database for demos

[Thomas R. <tri...@tr...>]

Hi all,

This has been a busy weekend and I think we are making great progress.

A few comments:

> (1) The database. I'm in favor of mySQL because a lot of documentation
can be found for it and is moving more and more towards a very mature
product. It is also very widespread, for ex. all the webhosters I know
are offering it. And it's really a plus that one can find good books
about it, besides all the info on the web. Plus it comes pre-installed
on linux boxes.

My guess is that the vast majority of all MySQL installations don't have
InnoDB support enabled.  This means that you don't have any transaction
support.  Configuring MySQL to use InnoDB is not that hard, but it still
requires an additional step.  Installing HSQLDB is a nobrainer and any
JDBC book should give you enough info on how to use it.

> (2) The application server. I think JBoss is moving away from the open
source spirit, and in addition it is quite hard to customize
(datasources etc). And you have to shell out money for the docs or buy a
book. So if we forget about the open source aspect for a minute, it
seems to me we are left with 2 options : Orion and JRun, both free for
developers. It's been a while since I've worked with Orion, but have
heard good things about it. I'm using JRun, and am quite pleased with it.

I don't agree with you that JBoss is moving away from the open source
spirit - they are just trying to capitalize on their hard work.  The
source is still available for JBoss.  Even if they were, they are still
more open than our other choices.  

I think we should select an app server based on the services/features
that we require and the ease of configuring these services.  I have some
JBoss experience but almost no Orion experience so I am going by what I
can quickkly learn from their documentation.

Both JBoss and Orion are very easy to install -- unzip.

Adding a Datasource seems to be much easier in Orion.  The JBoss
configuration seems much more complex.  However, JBoss is based on JMX
and if we could run a script that configures everything we need, then
this would be less of an issue.  

Coming from a datbase beckground where you can do pretty much anything
from SQL/DDL scripts, it has always surprised me that there has been
little support by the app server vendors for scripted configuration of
their servers.  Having someone manually modifying configuration files on
a production server seems very error prone to me.  There is some new
development in this area though.  You can configure some WebLogic
services using WLScript, and 8.1 is supposed to come with Ant tasks for
configuring the MBeans.  

There is an open source project JMX4Ant
(http://jmx4ant.sourceforge.net/) that does provide Ant tasks for JMX
enabled app servers.  It currently supports WebLogic and JBoss.  I
planning on trying this out next week and I will let you know if this
would help us in the configuration area.  It would be nice to have a few
Ant targets for installing and configuring the required app server.

> (3) The logo. We shouldn't mix metaphors, so if we go with the spring
for the letter i, then we shouldn't use a cherry blossom or  whatever
for the cartoon.

Agree, we should pick one or the other.

Thomas