"But Minilang would be the better option because with Minilang, the developers time is much reduced as it is used to implement simple and repetitive tasks" - from the article OFBiz Framework: An Innovative Approach to E-commerce<http://www.dotcominfoway.com/blog/ofbiz-framework-an-innovative-approach-to-e-commerce>
Why not overcome minlang's weakness..... Minilang seems to be one of the reasons for the branch in projects (well that's entirely speculation on my part)....it seems a bone of contention and I've seen posts where people complain about how difficult it is to debug, how they've had to get rid of developers who refused to learn it. On the wiki of one of the main down stream projects Opentaps it says: don't ever write one in minilang!<http://www.opentaps.org/docs/index.php/Danc_-_temp#Services> I personally don't enjoy working in minilang, scanning hundreds of lines of minilang & then using 'simple method' names together with "search & find" to move between files to trace a path of execution looking for a bug or that one small operation somewhere in the service chain I need to disable, gives me a headache. However a couple of months ago I decided to rewrite a minilang method in java so that I could alter it's functionality, it had to do with processing returns, anyway by the end of it I had a better understanding of the *upside to minlang*, because all it does is move data around by calling other simple methods, *to write that in java takes a lot more code then it does in minilang*....... Grouping business logic into modular scripts called "simple methods" and then using what has be already been defined as building blocks to weave into the already existing web of simple methods, your new customised higher level service seems a good idea to me. The problem as I see it is there is no tool or framework to quickly get information about what services exist, how would they'd effect the data and what their IN's and OUT's are, in other words how they'd best fit together; in order to define a new one that will fit the specific needs for the service I'm writing. When I use words like weave and web, anyone who has worked in minilang knows what I mean. But how many GUI development tools exist to deal with just that exact same problem in other frameworks? I can think of a few open source eclipse plug-ins that would act as a good starting template, to create such a tool. In some ofbiz supported enterprises I suspect that they, even have their team set-up to get get around these problems, with say a master weaver who facilitates the integration of new simple methods. Meta-programming definitely has it's advantages, but for places where it's gained the most *popularity*, it usually comes with a tool which supports it's use. *Then every one ruled by reason can create service solutions in ofbiz, not just the programmers willing to learn minilang!* I'd be more then happy to donate some time to such an undertaking if anyone else thinks it's worth the effort? -- Regards, Justin Venture-Net Research & Development
