Re: [RT] Some notes about the "Real Blocks" issue

[Ralph Goers]

I must admit, I have issues with this whole discussion.  I understand 
that there are problems with the Avalon community and that the current 
code base is making implementing real blocks difficult.  But I have also 
used Spring and have issues with that. To summarize:
1. Figuring out what is going on in cocoon.xconf and cocoon.roles is 
pretty straightforward. Providing enhancements that fulfill the same 
contracts is easy.  In my use of Spring I have not seen the same thing. 
I just see a bunch of classes being created and set methods called on 
some of them.
2. I have recently been digging into the Portal block.  IMO, Carsten has 
done a masterful job of leveraging the best of Avalon, Cocoon and 
Castor.  Frankly, I'm just not sure how this could work as well in an 
environment built on dependency injection.  The documentation on the 
portal is pretty thin.  However, because it adhers to contracts it is 
pretty easy to match up the configuration with the interfaces and then 
look at what individual classes are doing.  I wonder if this would be 
true with a container such as Spring.

In short, the fact that Cocoon is just a bunch of parts that get 
configured is one of Cocoon's major strengths.  However, the current 
configuration is pretty easy to understand and modify.  If the 
replacement container makes the configuration more complex and less 
understandable that will really hurt the acceptance of the product.