From: Brian T. <to...@co...> - 2004-11-29 20:28:24
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Hello Jose, Yes, things are coming along rather nicely on this side of the fence. I've had no major problems with XDoclet for several months and decided that it was a good time to get things in shape so others could take advantage of it. Getting started with it is not hard at all, and you don't need the sources. The instructions that are provided at http://xdoclet.codehaus.org/Two+Minute+Introduction are a good introduction to the process and another resource I know of that you can cross-reference these instructions from is at http://cvs.dentaku.codehaus.org/viewrep/dentaku/dentaku/example-model/maven.xml?r=1.5. (Gentaku and XDoclet are similar, they just use a different MetadataProvider...) I'm not sure of any reason you would need the sources other than for creating your own plugins. If you want to do that, the hardest thing is grokking how PicoContainer works, and once you have that down, you are really in great shape. Really, all there is to it is for your class constructor to have parameters for the components it wishes to be injected with. So if you want a MetadataProvider, just put that in your constructor and it will magically appear. The typical problem is specifying a type for a parameter that returns no components (scoped too tightly) or too many components (scoped too loosely). For instance, a plugin usually wants a very specific form of generation (it's not an option for the container to randomly pick between FreeMarker or Velocity if your script is written for the other one that it chooses), but you do not want to choose a MetadataProvider too strictly because that way users cannot change it without recompiling your code. To illustrate, Gentaku changes the MetadataProvider to send in one that gets it's tag data from UML. If the plugin loosely specifies that all it cares is that the metadata that it requires is QDox Compatible (by using the interface instead of the class itself), the plugin will be compatible with both XDoclet2 and Gentaku. Anyway, the sources you probably will need are those of the plugins for example. I was going to send out a separate letter to this effect about XDoclet2, so here's the scraps of that: > We're attempting a restart on getting people using XDoclet2 and was > wondering if I might be able to find a small number of converts. The > reasons are compelling, and if you've thought about it, here's why" > > 1. Without question, the plugins are easier to write. It is > unnecessary to understand the entire inner architecture of XDoclet in > order to generate successfully, just duplicate a two files in an > existing project and you are rolling. > 2. The templating engine is no longer something that looks like XML > but acts completely different, it uses your choice of Velocity or > Freemarker for basic generation. If you've ever generated HTML with > either of these, you know that they are a breeze to work with, and > have active user communities behind them. > 3. If you are generating XML, such as with the XML descriptors for > J2EE applications, generating with Jelly allows you to be sure that > your templates are well-formed in any XML editor, saving many > headaches in comparison to generation with the original XDoclet. This > alone saves hours of hassle when generating XML. > 4. What's more, if you have developers on your team with existing > experience in any of these three templating technologies, they will be > immediately at home with the generation capabilities in XDoclet2. > > You may be asking yourself whether it's worth converting to XDoclet2 > and not just move over to annotations. I would say there are two main > reasons: > > 1. First, the number of plugins that are available for annotations are > small. While this will grow over time, so will the plugins available > for XDoclet. > 2. More importantly, the choices for your source of metadata in J5 > Annotations are limited to the source in your Java code. If you are > at all interested in generating from sources such as UML, you are > stuck. Same is true if you are not able to upgrade to J5 yet. Your other point about the state of the plugins is valid, but the case I try to make here is that writing plugins is so easy now that you'll probably find yourself writing them more than ever, and adding fixes to the existing ones will seem truly natural. Getting some new plugins and members contributing there would be a very good thing, so please consider it! We're always happy to help out. Please feel free to subscribe to the lists over at codehaus and get involved there. It's the best place for support on X2. They are listed at http://xdoclet.codehaus.org/Mailing+lists. Looking forward to seeing you around!! Brian Topping p.s. Don't forget about the logo contest (http://xdoclet.codehaus.org/Logo+Contest) winner to be announced Wednesday!! Jose Gonzalez Gomez wrote: > > Hi there, > > Recently I came across http://xdoclet.codehaus.org/ and found that > XDoclet2 seems to be in a rather usable state. Any way, there is no > information in the web about status of the project, expected release > dates, downloadable source or binary tarballs or anything like that... > what is the status of the project? Do you recommend a migration to > XDoclet2 in its current state? Is it possible to use with the current > release of Maven? > > Best regards > Jose > > > ------------------------------------------------------- > SF email is sponsored by - The IT Product Guide > Read honest & candid reviews on hundreds of IT Products from real users. > Discover which products truly live up to the hype. Start reading now. > http://productguide.itmanagersjournal.com/ > _______________________________________________ > xdoclet-user mailing list > xdo...@li... > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/xdoclet-user > > |