webmacro-devel — Discuss development issues related to the core of WebMacro

Re: [Webmacro-devel] If anyone has a few spare minutes...

[Brian G. <br...@qu...>]

> It would be great if someone could provide some actual user-land info about 
> the various ContextTools we supply with WM.

I'd also like to see more lazy loading of Context tools, as cloning
the context tools map is an expensive operation and part of every
request, whether the user is going to use them or not.

[Webmacro-devel] If anyone has a few spare minutes...

[Marc P. <ma...@an...>]

It would be great if someone could provide some actual user-land info about 
the various ContextTools we supply with WM.

The http://www.webmacro.org/ContextTools page just links to the javadocs 
for each tool which is not going to help any template writer really.

I'm linking to the WM site for documentation of WM-specific tools from my 
documentation for the webapp, and in some cases it's just not helpful for 
user-land people.

However in future there is a way we could make this all work better. I have 
developed a BeanInfo wrapper for templates, which is used extensively for 
providing documentation for template writers.

All you need to do is write BeanInfo classes for helpers and context tools. 
For ContextTools these would usually be "fake" in terms of what the context 
tool itself has in its interface, as a lot of them are just classes that 
provide another class for the template. However this would still work, if 
being a little ugly.

Later perhaps we could use the BeanInfoWrapper to provide documentation of 
these tools from the live webmacro.org site.

-- 
Marc Palmer
Contract Java Consultant/Developer
Currently available for hire!
http://www.anyware.co.uk/marc/
http://www.wangjammers.org

Re: [Webmacro-devel] Parser error handling for invalid directive descriptor

[<Kea...@di...>]

Right.





Lane Sharman <la...@op...>
06/11/2003 01:55 AM

 
        To:     Kea...@di...
        cc:     web...@li...
        Subject:        Re: [Webmacro-devel] Parser error handling for invalid directive 
descriptor


you want to add 

  catch (ParseException pe) { 
    throw pe; 
  } 

???


Kea...@di... wrote:

I found a minor bug in the parser dealing with invalid directive 
descriptors.  The parse_directive() method does a 

     throw new ParseException("Descriptor for directive " + directive + " 
is not valid"); 

but then catches the exception and throws another: 

  catch (Exception e) { 
    throw new ParseException("No such directive #" + directive); 
  } 

We just need to add another catch clause to rethrow the ParseException and 
then regen the parser. 

I don't have javacc set up so I'd appreciate it if someone else could do 
this for me. 

Thanks. 

Keats 

[Webmacro-devel] Assigning tasks to people

[Marc P. <ma...@an...>]

OK, for us to get organised enough to get a 2.0 release together with the 
new features we agree, we'll need to:

1. We need to collate requests from the wm-user list and decide/vote what 
we will achieve for 2.0

2. We need to put all these things into an SF tracker and assign them to 
people who are willing to commit to doing the work.

Sound good?


-- 
Marc Palmer
Contract Java Consultant/Developer
Currently available for hire!
http://www.anyware.co.uk/marc/
http://www.wangjammers.org

[Webmacro-devel] Changelog?

[Marc P. <ma...@an...>]

Guys,

Is it possible to use SF CVS/RSS or something to get an automated changelog 
page going on www.webmacro.org? We really need this to keep people up to 
date with what's happening.

I know Maven does something like this, but so far I'm not so keen on it. 
I've look at Maven-enabled sites and while it is quite nice and structured 
it doesn't seem very user-friendly to me. The concept is good I think, but 
it's lacking that X factor.

Hey, completely unrelated. I've just realised I can really trivially use 
the Ignition webapp to send nicely formatted RSS newsfeed content to people 
by email. Interesting ;-)

-- 
Marc Palmer
Contract Java Consultant/Developer
Currently available for hire!
http://www.anyware.co.uk/marc/
http://www.wangjammers.org

[Webmacro-devel] Hi! JSR 223 - Scripting Pages in JavaTM Web Applications

[<web...@st...>]

Do you have any input?!

http://jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=223

WebMacro and Velocity should ideally jump in here and tout the cool ideas
embedded in this common type of language!

Endre.

Re: [Webmacro-devel] WM 2.0 strategy

[Lane S. <la...@op...>]

Hi Mike,

Thanks for the excellent feedback. As my last email hinted, we, the 
developers, would like to see a bigger community for WM. Please consider 
what you might do to write some letters to some influential and 
interested friends.

As to the template directive, this is a very important new directive and 
it will surely be in release 2.0.

thanks for your feedback!

-Lane

Mike Weerdenburg wrote:

> At 08:02 PM 6/10/2003, you wrote:
>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> > Eric B. Ridge
>> > Are we doing this just for ourselves?
>>
>> You guys are doing great stuff and should not feel discouraged. 
>> Webmacro is good and stable so hugely useful but maybe a bit boring.
>>
>> Your contributions are very appreciated.
>> Harmeet
>>
>> One satisfied user. We use WM to generate email notifications, create 
>> webmacro/DB driven dynamic sites and to paramterize protocol 
>> simulation for testing.
>
>
> Harmeet,
> I couldn't agree more!
>
> Webmacro is a great and stable product!
>
> We use it for web aplications:
> - Ecommerce system
> - Web content management system
> - Generating E-mail letters.
> - Grabbing web pages and getting information out of it, like the 
> weather forecasts etc.
> - and a lot more nice things.
>
> What I / we like to see in the new 2.0 release:
>
> - We need the template tool / (directive?)
> Whe have a string (out of the database for example) and this string 
> has to be parsed within a template.
> (just like a seperate template, but it uses the current context).
>
> <CODE EXAMPLE>
>
> #set $tmplText = $webUtil.getFromDatabaseForExample()
> // $tmplText now contains : "This is $MyTest and this is $dummy"
>
> #set $MyTest = "test 123"
>
> #set $tmpl = $Template.fromString($tmplText)
> #set $tmpl.copyCurrentContext()
> #set $tmpl.Args.dummy = "my dummy argument"
> $tmpl.eval()
>
> The result of the evaluation has to be : "This is test 123 and this is 
> my dummy argument"
> </CODE EXAMPLE>
>
>
> All the other improvements etc...
> I dont'n know if we will use them, but it sounds good!
>
> * Another satisfied user.
>   Webmacro user since version 0.95 / 0.98
>
> Mike Weerdenburg - Development
>
> Traction Information Technologies B.V.
> Bedrijvenweg 6a
> 1424 PX De Kwakel
> The Netherlands
> tel. +31 (0)297 386850
> fax. +31 (0)297 386851
> http://www.traction-it.nl <http://www.traction-it.nl/>
>

Re: [Webmacro-devel] WM 2.0 strategy

[Lane S. <la...@op...>]

Eric B. Ridge wrote:

> On Tuesday, June 10, 2003, at 12:13  PM, Brian Goetz wrote:
>
>
> I'm sorry, did you say "success"?
>
>     http://sourceforge.net/project/stats/ 
> index.php?report=last_30&group_id=64597
>
Statistics for the past 9 months.

Month Rank Page Views D/l Bugs Support Patches All Trkr Tasks CVS
June 2003 5473 ( 9.67 ) 6,748 0   0 ( 0 )   0 ( 0 )   0 ( 0 )   0 ( 0 ) 
  0 ( 0 )   2
May 2003 3380 ( 65.82 ) 23,586 160   0 ( 0 )   0 ( 0 )   0 ( 0 )   0 ( 0 
)   0 ( 0 )   0
April 2003 3328 ( 44.08 ) 26,391 376   0 ( 0 )   0 ( 0 )   0 ( 0 )   0 ( 
0 )   0 ( 0 )   0
March 2003 2958 ( 71.98 ) 26,837 480   0 ( 0 )   0 ( 0 )   0 ( 0 )   0 ( 
0 )   0 ( 0 )   16
February 2003 2303 ( 78.99 ) 23,212 432   0 ( 0 )   0 ( 0 )   0 ( 0 ) 
  0 ( 0 )   0 ( 0 )   42
January 2003 1505 ( 85.73 ) 38,122 1,118   0 ( 0 )   0 ( 0 )   0 ( 0 ) 
  0 ( 1 )   0 ( 0 )   12
December 2002 1485 ( 85.26 ) 23,271 1,018   0 ( 0 )   0 ( 0 )   0 ( 0 ) 
  1 ( 0 )   0 ( 0 )   47
November 2002 1565 ( 84.20 ) 26,764 396   0 ( 0 )   0 ( 0 )   0 ( 0 ) 
  0 ( 0 )   0 ( 0 )   71
October 2002 3276 ( 66.24 ) 10,706 112   0 ( 0 )   0 ( 0 )   0 ( 0 )   0 
( 0 )   0 ( 0 )   4


I do not consider the download numbers to be a sign of failure, ebr.

On the other hand, we have got our butts kicked by the Apache aura 
surrounding Velocitis.

-Lane

> Are we doing this just for ourselves?
>
> eric
>
>
>
> -------------------------------------------------------
> This SF.net email is sponsored by:  Etnus, makers of TotalView, The best
> thread debugger on the planet. Designed with thread debugging features
> you've never dreamed of, try TotalView 6 free at www.etnus.com.
> _______________________________________________
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> Web...@li...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/webmacro-devel
>

Re: [Webmacro-devel] WM 2.0 strategy

[Mike W. <m.w...@tr...>]

At 08:02 PM 6/10/2003, you wrote:
>----- Original Message -----
> > Eric B. Ridge
> > Are we doing this just for ourselves?
>
>You guys are doing great stuff and should not feel discouraged. Webmacro 
>is good and stable so hugely useful but maybe a bit boring.
>
>Your contributions are very appreciated.
>Harmeet
>
>One satisfied user. We use WM to generate email notifications, create 
>webmacro/DB driven dynamic sites and to paramterize protocol simulation 
>for testing.

Harmeet,
I couldn't agree more!

Webmacro is a great and stable product!

We use it for web aplications:
- Ecommerce system
- Web content management system
- Generating E-mail letters.
- Grabbing web pages and getting information out of it, like the weather 
forecasts etc.
- and a lot more nice things.

What I / we like to see in the new 2.0 release:

- We need the template tool / (directive?)
Whe have a string (out of the database for example) and this string has to 
be parsed within a template.
(just like a seperate template, but it uses the current context).

<CODE EXAMPLE>

#set $tmplText = $webUtil.getFromDatabaseForExample()
// $tmplText now contains : "This is $MyTest and this is $dummy"

#set $MyTest = "test 123"

#set $tmpl = $Template.fromString($tmplText)
#set $tmpl.copyCurrentContext()
#set $tmpl.Args.dummy = "my dummy argument"
$tmpl.eval()

The result of the evaluation has to be : "This is test 123 and this is my 
dummy argument"
</CODE EXAMPLE>


All the other improvements etc...
I dont'n know if we will use them, but it sounds good!

* Another satisfied user.
   Webmacro user since version 0.95 / 0.98

Mike Weerdenburg - Development

Traction Information Technologies B.V.
Bedrijvenweg 6a
1424 PX De Kwakel
The Netherlands
tel. +31 (0)297 386850
fax. +31 (0)297 386851
http://www.traction-it.nl 

Re: [Webmacro-devel] Parser error handling for invalid directive descriptor

[Lane S. <la...@op...>]

you want to add

  catch (ParseException pe) {
    throw pe;
  }

???


Kea...@di... wrote:

>
> I found a minor bug in the parser dealing with invalid directive 
> descriptors.  The parse_directive() method does a
>
>      throw new ParseException("Descriptor for directive " + directive 
> + " is not valid");
>
> but then catches the exception and throws another:
>
>   catch (Exception e) {
>     throw new ParseException("No such directive #" + directive);
>   }
>
> We just need to add another catch clause to rethrow the ParseException 
> and then regen the parser.
>
> I don't have javacc set up so I'd appreciate it if someone else could 
> do this for me.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Keats 

Re: [Webmacro-devel] WM 2.0 strategy

[Marc P. <ma...@an...>]

On Tue, 10 Jun 2003 14:45:38 -0400, <Kea...@di...> wrote:

[snip]
> We may be victims of our own success.  Not just Velocity, but JSP has 
> adopted many of WM's innovations.  I think when JSP 2.0, with its JSTL- 
> EL, becomes widely supported, the case for WM (and Velocity) will be 
> weaker. WM syntax is still much nicer, but the difference is not as 
> pronounced. For example:
>
> JSTL:
>
> <c:forEach var="item" items="${sessionScope.cart.items}">
> ...
> </c:forEach>
>
> WM:
>
> #foreach $item in $Session.Cart.Items {
> ...
> }
> Clearly WM wins, but not by miles.  Given the broad industry support for 
> JSP, the momentum is clearly in their favor.

Well don't forget the other "features" of JSP. Um, requiring a java 
compiler for one. Poor performance for number two.
Extreme ugliness 3?

> One niche where WM may continue to compete is in non-Servlet templating 
> applications, but that seems to be a relatively small sector.
>
> Sorry if this sounds bleak, but I think it's really a good thing.  How 
> does that old saying go ..."they won the war after losing every battle"?
>
> I expect that WM will continue to be a nice little tool for a small group 
> of diehards (like me), but the big guns will continue to rule roost as 
> far as developer mind-share goes.

Perhaps, but it I really think it doesn't have to be so. You can't beat 
true simplicity.

WM will always be much nicer than JSP for non-programmers to use. Remember 
there are millions of people out there who can just about hack together 
HTML but will freak if you talk to them about XML or non-HTML tags.

Step in, WebMacro Ignition :-)

Very close to the alpha release now. Sorry about all the false deadlines. 
Just quite a big project.

I'm hoping to release for you tomorrow or Thursday. Doing README, version 
number stuff, and one potential bug to fix.


-- 
Marc Palmer
Contract Java Consultant/Developer
Currently available for hire!
http://www.anyware.co.uk/marc/
http://www.wangjammers.org

Re: [Webmacro-devel] WM 2.0 strategy

[<Kea...@di...>]

It's hard to make a strong case against Velocity, as it is so similar to 
WM.  Our major benefits AFAICT are a nicer syntax, more flexibility in 
configuration, and a more pluggable architecture.

Velocity has an advantage in 3rd party support and tool integration as 
well as a simpler (though ugly) syntax.

We've never really tried to promote WM.  It seems like we've been pretty 
happy to serve our little user community and ourselves.  It does irk me a 
bit sometimes to see all the kudos going to Velocity, but they say that 
imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

We may be victims of our own success.  Not just Velocity, but JSP has 
adopted many of WM's innovations.  I think when JSP 2.0, with its JSTL-EL, 
becomes widely supported, the case for WM (and Velocity) will be weaker. 
WM syntax is still much nicer, but the difference is not as pronounced. 
For example:

JSTL:

  <c:forEach var="item" items="${sessionScope.cart.items}">
  ...
 </c:forEach>

WM:

 #foreach $item in $Session.Cart.Items {
  ...
 }
 
Clearly WM wins, but not by miles.  Given the broad industry support for 
JSP, the momentum is clearly in their favor.

One niche where WM may continue to compete is in non-Servlet templating 
applications, but that seems to be a relatively small sector.

Sorry if this sounds bleak, but I think it's really a good thing.  How 
does that old saying go ..."they won the war after losing every battle"?

I expect that WM will continue to be a nice little tool for a small group 
of diehards (like me), but the big guns will continue to rule roost as far 
as developer mind-share goes. 

(And then M$.Net takes over the world ...)

Keats





On Tue, 10 Jun 2003 13:01:30 -0400, Eric B. Ridge <eb...@tc...> wrote:

> On Tuesday, June 10, 2003, at 12:25  PM, Brian Goetz wrote:
>
>>> I'm sorry, did you say "success"?
>>
>> Velocity copied our entire syntax and design.
>> Resin has extended their JSP engine to support WM-style tags.
>>
>> Our design is successful, even if our project is not.
>
> That's all fine and dandy, but there's almost no user-land activity now. 
 
> Hate to admit it, but it's a severe motivation killer when it comes to 
> doing things like reformatting source code and reorganizing package 
> structures.

We can get 'em back! We just need to produce new stuff and promote it. We 
need to sing WM's praises, not assume that everybody will just "know" its 
benefits.

-- 
Marc Palmer
Contract Java Consultant/Developer
Currently available for hire!
http://www.anyware.co.uk/marc/
http://www.wangjammers.org




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_______________________________________________
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Re: [Webmacro-devel] WM 2.0 strategy

[Marc P. <ma...@an...>]

On Tue, 10 Jun 2003 14:35:00 -0400, Eric B. Ridge <eb...@tc...> wrote:

> On Tuesday, June 10, 2003, at 02:29  PM, Marc Palmer wrote:
>
>> Although perhaps for public-relations reasons we should introduce some 
>> new directives that will make it easier to render pages containing naked 
>> women?
>
> Anyone want to help me write the #domyjobforme directive?  I suppose we'd 
> want a #while directive too:
>
> #while (!$HaventBeenCaughtSurfingForPorn) {
> #domyjobforme
> }

Haha, well actually that's kind of what we want WM to be able to do :-)

Can you remember the times before we used WM for our web projects. Arrrrgh!

I'm really keen on getting XML RPC call + SOAP call actions written for the 
webapp. They will be easy to write and provide us with some very neat stuff 
indeed.

One thing I am really really desperate to get happening is making WM much 
easier to use by providing lots of info (from the application) about what 
variables, helpers etc are available. I've got all that going in the webapp 
but what I don't have (yet) is a really nice way to display it all. It's a 
very long page at the moment!

The thing to remember is that Velocity has got so much exposure through 
other Jakarta projects. WM has not had any of this. In fact we've had only 
negative publicity from Apache because of all the old docs lying around 
saying how they used to use WM but it sucked so they wrote Velocity.

We really must get them to take that rubbish down.

Marc

-- 
Marc Palmer
Contract Java Consultant/Developer
Currently available for hire!
http://www.anyware.co.uk/marc/
http://www.wangjammers.org

Re: [Webmacro-devel] WM 2.0 strategy

[Eric B. R. <eb...@tc...>]

On Tuesday, June 10, 2003, at 02:29  PM, Marc Palmer wrote:

> Although perhaps for public-relations reasons we should introduce some 
> new directives that will make it easier to render pages containing 
> naked women?

Anyone want to help me write the #domyjobforme directive?  I suppose 
we'd want a #while directive too:

#while (!$HaventBeenCaughtSurfingForPorn) {
    #domyjobforme
}

eric

>
> Marc
> -- 
> Marc Palmer
> Contract Java Consultant/Developer
> Currently available for hire!
> http://www.anyware.co.uk/marc/
> http://www.wangjammers.org
>
>
>
> -------------------------------------------------------
> This SF.net email is sponsored by:  Etnus, makers of TotalView, The 
> best
> thread debugger on the planet. Designed with thread debugging features
> you've never dreamed of, try TotalView 6 free at www.etnus.com.
> _______________________________________________
> Webmacro-devel mailing list
> Web...@li...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/webmacro-devel

Re: [Webmacro-devel] WM 2.0 strategy

[Marc P. <ma...@an...>]

On Tue, 10 Jun 2003 11:02:46 -0700 (PDT), <har...@ko...> 
wrote:

> You guys are doing great stuff and should not feel discouraged. Webmacro 
> is good and stable so hugely useful but maybe a bit boring.
>
> Your contributions are very appreciated.
> Harmeet
>
> One satisfied user. We use WM to generate email notifications, create 
> webmacro/DB driven dynamic sites and to paramterize protocol simulation 
> for testing.

Great news!

Thanks for the words of support. If you haven't already, register for the 
Wiki site and add yourself to the page on solutions built using WebMacro.

I know what you mean about WM being a bit "boring". Hopefully my 
forthcoming webapp will spice things up a bit. I'm certainly excited about 
converting all my existing sites to use it.

Although perhaps for public-relations reasons we should introduce some new 
directives that will make it easier to render pages containing naked women?

Marc
-- 
Marc Palmer
Contract Java Consultant/Developer
Currently available for hire!
http://www.anyware.co.uk/marc/
http://www.wangjammers.org

[Webmacro-devel] Velocity on our site

[Marc P. <ma...@an...>]

How about we turn this page:

http://www.webmacro.org/Velocity

Into a page of WM vs. Velocity. It seems somewhat cheeky to have that on 
our site... given that there are no parser or licensing advantages to 
Velocity now.

Along with that we should remove the /Scarab page also, I think. It is not 
relevant to WM.

How do we delete pages from Wiki? Or do we just say "Ooops, this is 
obsolete."

-- 
Marc Palmer
Contract Java Consultant/Developer
Currently available for hire!
http://www.anyware.co.uk/marc/
http://www.wangjammers.org

Re: [Webmacro-devel] WM 2.0 strategy

[Eric B. R. <eb...@tc...>]

On Tuesday, June 10, 2003, at 02:02  PM, har...@ko... 
wrote:

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Eric B. Ridge" <eb...@tc...>
> Sent: Jun 10, 12:18 PM
>> Are we doing this just for ourselves?
>
> You guys are doing great stuff and should not feel discouraged. 
> Webmacro is good and stable so hugely useful but maybe a bit boring.

That's great to hear!  Really!  Wanna really boost our (okay, maybe 
just my) morale?  Go download WM about 10,000 times from SF so our 
download stats won't suck as bad.  :)

> Your contributions are very appreciated.

Well, from a user perspective, what things do you think are necessary 
for WM 2.0?

eric

> Harmeet
>
> One satisfied user. We use WM to generate email notifications, create 
> webmacro/DB driven dynamic sites and to paramterize protocol 
> simulation for testing.
>
>
>
> -------------------------------------------------------
> This SF.net email is sponsored by:  Etnus, makers of TotalView, The 
> best
> thread debugger on the planet. Designed with thread debugging features
> you've never dreamed of, try TotalView 6 free at www.etnus.com.
> _______________________________________________
> Webmacro-devel mailing list
> Web...@li...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/webmacro-devel

Re: [Webmacro-devel] WM 2.0 strategy

[Eric B. R. <eb...@tc...>]

On Tuesday, June 10, 2003, at 01:40  PM, Marc Palmer wrote:

> FWIW Eric I think we probably lost a lot touch with a lot of our users 
> in the switch to SF.
>
> Can we tell how many people we have on webmacro-user now, versus what 
> we had with the old list?

There are 231 currently subscribed users on the -user list, and 22 on 
the -devel list,and 11 on the -cvs list.

I think the old list -user list had somewhere close to 400 users... 
which is pretty close cuz I know I've received a boatload of "forced 
unsubscribe" notices from address that are undeliverable.

eric

>
>
> -- 
> Marc Palmer
> Contract Java Consultant/Developer
> Currently available for hire!
> http://www.anyware.co.uk/marc/
> http://www.wangjammers.org
>
>
>
>
> -------------------------------------------------------
> This SF.net email is sponsored by:  Etnus, makers of TotalView, The 
> best
> thread debugger on the planet. Designed with thread debugging features
> you've never dreamed of, try TotalView 6 free at www.etnus.com.
> _______________________________________________
> Webmacro-devel mailing list
> Web...@li...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/webmacro-devel

Re: [Webmacro-devel] WM 2.0 strategy

[<har...@ko...>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Eric B. Ridge" <eb...@tc...>
Sent: Jun 10, 12:18 PM
> Are we doing this just for ourselves?

You guys are doing great stuff and should not feel discouraged. Webmacro is good and stable so hugely useful but maybe a bit boring. 

Your contributions are very appreciated.
Harmeet

One satisfied user. We use WM to generate email notifications, create webmacro/DB driven dynamic sites and to paramterize protocol simulation for testing.

Re: [Webmacro-devel] WM 2.0 strategy

[Marc P. <ma...@an...>]

On Tue, 10 Jun 2003 13:01:30 -0400, Eric B. Ridge <eb...@tc...> wrote:


> That's all fine and dandy, but there's almost no user-land activity now.  
> Hate to admit it, but it's a severe motivation killer when it comes to 
> doing things like reformatting source code and reorganizing package 
> structures.

FWIW Eric I think we probably lost a lot touch with a lot of our users in 
the switch to SF.

Can we tell how many people we have on webmacro-user now, versus what we 
had with the old list?


-- 
Marc Palmer
Contract Java Consultant/Developer
Currently available for hire!
http://www.anyware.co.uk/marc/
http://www.wangjammers.org

Re: [Webmacro-devel] WM 2.0 strategy

[Marc P. <ma...@an...>]

On Tue, 10 Jun 2003 13:01:30 -0400, Eric B. Ridge <eb...@tc...> wrote:

> On Tuesday, June 10, 2003, at 12:25  PM, Brian Goetz wrote:
>
>>> I'm sorry, did you say "success"?
>>
>> Velocity copied our entire syntax and design.
>> Resin has extended their JSP engine to support WM-style tags.
>>
>> Our design is successful, even if our project is not.
>
> That's all fine and dandy, but there's almost no user-land activity now.  
> Hate to admit it, but it's a severe motivation killer when it comes to 
> doing things like reformatting source code and reorganizing package 
> structures.

We can get 'em back! We just need to produce new stuff and promote it. We 
need to sing WM's praises, not assume that everybody will just "know" its 
benefits.

-- 
Marc Palmer
Contract Java Consultant/Developer
Currently available for hire!
http://www.anyware.co.uk/marc/
http://www.wangjammers.org

[Webmacro-devel] velocity

[Marc P. <ma...@an...>]

I think we should kindly request the Velocity guys to update the factually 
incorrect page:

http://jakarta.apache.org/velocity/differences.html

Which is now so out of date - making a huge deal about the (very) old WM 
parser.

We also need some WM vs. Velocity stuff on our site. Just looked and they 
have template caching like we do, but don't have what I presume are in the 
main good things: FastWriter, Context Tools, custom directives etc.

We need to present a good argument on this stuff - it's so important to 
show how WM is truly superior to Velocity. Especially when we clean up the 
code.

Almost everything in that document is now false.

Anyone fancy approaching Geir or Jon ;-) ?

-- 
Marc Palmer
Contract Java Consultant/Developer
Currently available for hire!
http://www.anyware.co.uk/marc/
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Re: [Webmacro-devel] WM 2.0 strategy

[Eric B. R. <eb...@tc...>]

On Tuesday, June 10, 2003, at 12:25  PM, Brian Goetz wrote:

>> I'm sorry, did you say "success"?
>
> Velocity copied our entire syntax and design.
> Resin has extended their JSP engine to support WM-style tags.
>
> Our design is successful, even if our project is not.

That's all fine and dandy, but there's almost no user-land activity 
now.  Hate to admit it, but it's a severe motivation killer when it 
comes to doing things like reformatting source code and reorganizing 
package structures.

eric

[Webmacro-devel] "dead" WM

[Marc P. <ma...@an...>]

...it's also worth noting that there is almost NO webmacro-user traffic.

It's very quiet out there.

How about we developers start to promo WM a bit more where we can. Anyone 
fancy authoring an article or two for JavaWorld etc?

WM will need a unique selling point for these articles to be interesting 
though. i.e. explain the caching and performance features WM has that (I 
assume) Velocity does not.

Marc

-- 
Marc Palmer
Contract Java Consultant/Developer
Currently available for hire!
http://www.anyware.co.uk/marc/
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Re: [Webmacro-devel] WM 2.0 strategy

[Marc P. <ma...@an...>]

On Tue, 10 Jun 2003 12:19:13 -0400, Eric B. Ridge <eb...@tc...> wrote:

> I'm sorry, did you say "success"?
>
> http://sourceforge.net/project/stats/ 
> index.php?report=last_30&group_id=64597
>
> Are we doing this just for ourselves?

Haha yes I saw that. However there may be a problem at SF. Look at the page 
views - still really quite high.

Even so, our downloads are very low these days. We have ZERO profile. It's 
"too hard" to download WM and get immediate satisfaction in your 
applications.

i.e. There are no docs (I know of) that clearly set out how to construct a 
WM instance in a standalone app and render a template to System.out

There also isn't a ready to ship webapp. Yet :-)

We need the apps to make people realise how great WM is, and to recover 
some of the ground "stolen" by Velocity's association with Apache. WebMacro 
is probably seen as a "niche" product now that Velocity is promoted in all 
Apache projects that use templating.

Marc
-- 
Marc Palmer
Contract Java Consultant/Developer
Currently available for hire!
http://www.anyware.co.uk/marc/
http://www.wangjammers.org