Thanks for the reply. I still, however, cant figure out how to get a "hello world" working on a clean war without all of the other crap in the cocoon war. The configuration file is just plain staggering to say the least. And looking at some pages that use cocoon, I'm starting to have second thoughts about its performance in high traffic situation. Quite honestly I'm pretty close to saying "hell with it" and just coding the interface in JSP. Although it might be powerful, if it isn't easy, its trash. No professional dev wants, or has the time, to blow 2 to three weeks just to get separation of logic and presentation. Too high of a price for too little gain.
Powerful? I believe you. I believe its powerful. Scalable? I don't know. The Wiki page runs very slow for me and a tutorial linked to me from the IBM site (which was done in cocoon) was taking 10 to 15 seconds per page to render. Put that in production and your company can kiss sales goodbye. Internet users are impatient and any guy with a DSL isn't going to wait 15 seconds for your page. User friendly? You've got to be joking. No, I don't want to take up any more time from folks. I just simply don't have the time to mess with it. Reading config files and figuring out how the hell to build a new application just isn't what I want to do a very trivial part of my project with. -- Robert ----- Original Message ----- From: "SAXESS - Hussayn Dabbous" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Saturday, January 25, 2003 9:52 PM Subject: Re: Cocoon is complex, but worth it! Some Answers to your dilemma > I am with cocoon for about three months now and i remember > my own frustrations when i started as a newbie. From this > thread and other emails within this list and from my personal > experience with cocoon i conclude: > > 1.) cocoon gains high (initial) attraction (many newbies questions) > 2.) cocoon is not easy to apply by newbies (see this thread ;-) > 3.) cocoon is far away from getting mature (focus on dev HEAD) > dont missunderstand me: i mean it's robust but complex, > fast evolving and ever changing ... > > But if you look under the hood you also find: > > 4.) cocoon provides a very exciting technology. > 5.) cocoon IS actively developed. > 6.) cocoon attracts commercial interests (projects) > > > I assume everybody getting attracted to cocoon has some > ideas in mind what he/she wants to do with it, but after > opening the box it is (at first) hard to see how you could > gain from cocoon within your projects. And i think that > at least in commercial projects what counts is the amount > of time you need to get it mastered. > > > The (non developing) users seem to suffer from > > * undocumented features (wholes in documentation) > * complexity, even if the parts of interest > are well documented. > * huge amount of loosely coupled docs and documentation > sites. > * lack of "out of the box" applications that can be > used right from the initial installation (maybe > the cocoon portal is an exception, but it's also > really complex for the newbies, isn't it ?) > * functional overkill > * Lack of debugging facilities especially for sitemap > checking. > * very poor error reporting. You have to dig within tons of > stack traces to get a clue ... Sometimes you even get > no error report at all, it simply doesn't work. > > > But it is also true, that once you have mastered the > cocoon basics and once you start understanding how > things work, you suddenly get so much out of it, > that all your initial efforts get payed back. > > Because cocoon is something i really want to support, > i started a Wiki page that adresses some of the most > hearting issues. Hopefully this work can be > used (and improved) also by others: > > http://wiki.cocoondev.org/Wiki.jsp?page=SurvivalTips > > Besides this i recommend to have a look at the > "cocoon developer's handbook" (developer's library) > This book is now my "good companion" in the cocoon > adventure. > > Since i use cocoon within commercial projects i > had the oportunity to give away a small subproject > to one of the cocoon developers and i was really > positively surprised from the quality of the work > i got back. Hence i would recommend to all other > project managers out in the world: > > simply ask for support from the cocoon comunity and > i am shure, you will either get your problems > solved "on the fly" or you will find excellent experts > who will be happy to get involved in your projects as > freelancers... > > I hope that cocoon will master it's own future > and eventually become "the tomcat of XML-publishing" > > regards, Hussayn > > -- > Dr. Hussayn Dabbous > SAXESS Software Design GmbH > Neuenhöfer Allee 125 > 50935 Köln > Telefon: +49-221-56011-0 > Fax: +49-221-56011-20 > E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > Please check that your question has not already been answered in the > FAQ before posting. <http://xml.apache.org/cocoon/faq/index.html> > > To unsubscribe, e-mail: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > For additional commands, e-mail: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > --------------------------------------------------------------------- Please check that your question has not already been answered in the FAQ before posting. <http://xml.apache.org/cocoon/faq/index.html> To unsubscribe, e-mail: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For additional commands, e-mail: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
