On 9/28/06, Stephen McConnell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: [...]
This difference in scope an example that demonstrates an area where existing protocols and software are insufficient.
OK, if you say so. In my experience the statement "existing protocols and software are insufficient," is a red flag, but I will step aside. I feel like I am ignorant of what's really going on in your builds. I've worked some pretty hairy cross-repository builds in commercial systems. I've never needed to resort to custom protocol handlers, so I obviously don't know something about your situation that you do. Fair enough.
When we look at an individual codebase (and I'm referring here to a single codebase delivering a small number of discrete deliverables) the usage of location information (relative files locations and selection patterns) is totally appropriate. However, when codebase A references content in codebase B via location we are introducing a dependency not only on a foreign codebase location, but more importantly we are adding information about a foreign build strategy (via paths into a foreign structure).
I'm with you. I lost interest in Maven a long time ago because it was obviously tailored for simple projects a la Jakarta commons projects. I hear it's much better now, but anyway, I know the pain you're talking about.
If you consider a scenario where you are working with 10s or 100s of projects - the usage of explicit location (and the implicit leaking of foreign build strategies into the consuming project has (in my experience) been a major source of failure and contributes dramatically to build system maintenance overhead.
The common solution here is to establish some conventions and contracts between projects, i.e., build A will output its artifacts to location X, etc., build B will use location Y for its dependency repository. I don't see how custom protocol handlers, or much of anything, can solve the maintenance overhead issue since you sound as if you have no control over these distributed projects.
> inside of a protocol handler black's box. I would agree that protocol handling is an area of the JVM API a less well known (but I would disagree with the black-box metaphor). In the context of this thread a protocol handler is simply a standard factory for standard connections. The clarity of the behaviour of the respective protocol handler is directly related to its implementation and documentation.
Well, I meant that to a new, e.g., release engineer coming onto a project, he or she will be trying to understand the build(s). When he or she can see how everything in the build is related via properties files, shell scripts, and Ant build scripts (*declaratively* programmed), then the principle of "least surprise" is met and the person can probably figure this stuff out without me or you being there, necessarily. And they can change stuff without dropping into Java. But when you encapsulate artifact location resolution into Java protocol handlers (which is what I think you're doing), you've made the build into something that, while, OK, not a black box, requires an understanding of Java programming, which a lot of folks don't have or don't think they should need to have (even when they do!) to undestand how the build works.
From my point of view the support for the association of a resource with a configured URL opens up some significant opportunities for down-scaling management applications (and here I am thinking specifically about products such as the Depot build-system). The downscaling would be possible simply as a result of the use of common data elements - specifically URL instances that could flow in bother directions (from Depot to ant during project configuration, and from Ant to Depot during project execution). URL protocol handlers are simple standard structures and support within Ant for these structures would have a significant positive impact on the forward development of Depot.
I have to look into Depot. Like I said, I think I'll step aside and let the discussion open up for others to give input. Best regards, Scott Stirling Framingham, MA --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
