A note about the "best(?) (cocoon-) development environment" ...

[SAXESS - Hussayn Dabbous]

Hy, all;

During the last months of activities i learned a lot from this mailing list. while i followed the discussions i started getting my development
environment a bit up to date. I plan to setup a Wiki page on this
theme. Although this may be a bit off topic, it still would be great,
if someone could comment on this issue.


the tools collection
--------------------
Here is what i have put together so far. Of course this is driven
at least partially by what i do for my customers...

free tools:
1.) OS: linux and solaris (maybe a mater of taste)
2.) apache 1.3.26 (mod_jk2, mod_SSL)
3.) tomcat 4.1.18
4.) cocoon-2.0.4
5.) eclipse
6.) sunbow eclipse tools (xml/sitemap)
7.) ant
8.) java-1.3.1 (sun JDK on all platforms)
9.) Secureway LDAP Server (i'll switch to Open LDAP soon)

commercial tools:
10.) clearcase cms (see below)
11.) xml-spy
12.) several DB-Systems

notes about the collection
--------------------------

* All tools mentioned above fit tightly together.
I use apache/tomcat since about three years now.
The above combination also works fine with SSL.

* After i got eclipse setup in tomcat debugging mode,
i could at least double my productivity.
Thanks to the tomcat site it was a matter of seconds to
get it up see:

http://jakarta.apache.org/site/idedev-rdtomcat.html

* I also managed to setup eclipse with Cocoon in less than 10
minutes. OK, i did a lousy trick, but for debugging and
learning how cocoon internals work it's absolutley
satisfying...

* about SCM in general and Clearcase in particular:
Clearcase is a quite expensive and known to be very slow
SCM tool. On the other hand it is super easy to integrate.
Due to exposing the data within a "virtual filesystem" you
just don't see it from the users viewpoint (except checkin
checkout your files).
Having the clearcase integration kit for eclipse up and
running comes near to a developers dream. I hope, after
Rational has been incorporated into IBM, clearcase or a
derivate of it will eventually find it's way into the
ongoing eclipse efforts to build just another SCM. See

http://www.eclipse.org/technology/index.html
follow the link to "stellation" at the bottom of the page.

Another interesting new SCM could be subversion from

http://subversion.tigris.org/ ...

All of these SCM's provide directory versioning
(something once you got it, you'll never want to miss again...)

* I happen to use XML-Spy since a couple of years now.
Maybe i just got used to it. I like it, although i have
to pay for the license. At least it helps me getting
my XSCHEMA's generated in no time.


My personal SAXESS story ...
----------------------------
SAXESS stands for "System AXESS", just to get this clear;-)
I write this down, mainly because i got very very satisfied
with this especially when i compare this to what i was used
to in former times when open source was something, nobody
ever heard of...

I'm running my webserver on some linux box and my webapps
on solaris driven by tomcat. All of my code is dropped
into a company wide multiplatform SCM system. I'm developing
with the eclipse IDE right on my Desktop machine. I'm running
Cocoon for the visualisation part of my projects. This is just
a great XML publishing tool, and i'm still only using the
basics of it for now. By saving my work to the SCM,
my testwebapp gets autodeployed on a solaris box, which
happens to be our testenvironment. I can setup remote debuggig
sessions from my desktop directly into the heart of my
webapplications...
Once i checked in my work into the SCM, my webapp gets
autodeployed on linux, which happens to be our website
server. And i bet, after fiddeling around a bit, i could
setup a debugging session on my customers site, while sitting
somewhere at a beach, quickfix a bug, and then turn back to
the real life just beeing happy for the rest of the day...

A personal thank to the Open Source comunity
--------------------------------------------
Folks, Thank you very much all you, who have contributed to get
such a powerfull toolset up and running. I just get very excited
seeing this developer's dream becoming reality...
And sad enough i'm not sitting at a beach, but in
"good ol'e germany" getting to much rain and too
few sun (solaris is not good for everything...).

thanks for your attention, if your patience lasted until here ;-)

regards, Hussayn

--
Dr. Hussayn Dabbous
SAXESS Software Design GmbH
Neuenhöfer Allee 125
D-50935 Köln
tel.:+49 221 56011 0
fax.:+49 221-56011 20
email:[EMAIL PROTECTED]


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