<snip type="a very interesting discussion"/>
..now let me chime in
Having spent quite some time with XSP and ESQL (and friends) I have to admit: XSP can become a PITA. But usually because of taglibs (...as already mentioned in the thread)
The very basic XSP is not much more but using java as your templating language. Well, the thing is java and XML just don't mix very well. ...but that's just a question of the syntax.
Yes... I do think that taglibs are the evil of XSP. The compilation part ...not nice but more or less depends on how you deal with it.
The good and the bad is that XSP gives the full power of java. ...full access to every- thing available in the jvm.
But is ESQL is the best choice? Data input becomes a big deal when
you use ESQL for output and then a stream generator combined with transformation combined with sqltransformer combined with...
I'm a big proponent of "make the better decision easier than the worse decision." Quick and dirty, ESQL works. For limited obscure cases, ESQL is great.
Hm... I am wondering what you mean by the big deal of the input. Fact is that ESQL has some very unique features. ..that are needed in not so obscure cases.
I might not be up-to-date with object mapping frameworks but even if you say that they all support query time row limitations ...so tables of a million+ rows are still page-able without having the data shuffled across the network by the stupid JDBC driver implementation ...there still is the question if *you* do the database design. Mapping to a bad designed database can be also be no big fun.
Anyway what I was trying to say ...sometimes SQL can be a very concise syntax for what your framework might make even more complicated. Sometimes...
...it just depends!
I think a much bigger problem of ESQL (and also the SQLTransformer) is the time when the database processing is happening. ...just too late. Inside the view ...to bring the MVC up again.
It should better be inside the controller. Which would be most likely flow. But noone wants to pollute the flow with SQL statements (does someone)? ...that's the real beauty of flow with a relational mapping IMHO.
my 2 cents -- Torsten
