I just wanted to take moment and thank the cocoon community.
Cocoon kicks butt.
I make small to medium small business / personal web applications. Nothing fancy, basically alot of xsp + xsl templates (These alone match PHP I think) After the initial learning curve (which seems to extend a bit whenever I need something new), cocoon delivers speed and maintainability.
I enjoy watching the dev list to see what is coming next. I have a lot of trouble with java in general (learning as I go with no formal training). However I hate PHP and perl now. I actually regret the time I spent developing with them.
I came from the PHP world as well. I was able to get a lot of work done, and it introduced me to server-side programming. I had quickly gotten fed up with mixing html with my code, and learned how to use some of the templating libraries. The problem with them was that they were so @#% complex that I had to look up the syntax every time I wanted to use it. Compared to that, Cocoon is a breeze :D
The time saved from endless hours of scanning thousands of lines of php code to change ridiculous things like html table layouts, or an email notification has allowed me to keep my small-town, small business viable. I am able to work at home with my wife and children around me.
There are alot of ambitious goals for cocoon, and sometimes the lists gets so excited about new stuff, they might miss what has already been accomplished. But for me, Cocoon's existence has made a HUGE difference in my work *and* my home life.
It is hard to keep up with all of the stuff going on. I haven't had all that much time to dive into Woody as much as I'd like. Flow was around for a long time before people started using it -- and now other projects are finally picking up on the idea of using continuations on the web. I'm excited to see where Cocoon goes after 2.2.
It's awesome to see how something like Cocoon can concretely impact not only people's work, but also their personal life :)
Thanks Guys :)
JD
Regards,
Tony
