Hi Gang, now after the renaming activity is over (that is surely still ongoing, but at least we have a final name and a path), I think it is time to brainstorm about some future directions of Apache Polygene.
>From my perspective Polygene is a DCI and COP oriented programming approach for Java (but not only). COP and DCI takes lessons from the last 30-40 years of programming within the information industry. It is about solving business problems using a pattern that deals with the given complexity in the software itself, but it also considers how humans are solving problems in general, aka the mental model, roles, functions/actions, etc. Now, Apache Polygene has a relatively thin core, a number of extensions as well as a number of libraries. That extensions and libraries are dedicated to some infrastructural or technical related problems, e.g. how to connect to a repository X, .. We are now living in very interesting times, where lot of pretty cool things happens. E.g. all the "Cloud" related things that allows nearly endless scalability. Or the docker/rocket thing, that brings the infrastructure on the level of code. Indeed very interesting. But, at the end - why do we code ? Its about solving some problems, its not about to deal with infrastructural, technical or other things. Indeed, this things has to be solved as well, but this are a kind of "sub-problems", we code to solve some (business-) problems. Therefore I;m asking my self since a couple of months, where we should go with Polygene. Looking on the Java land, I see there Frameworks like JEE (somebody is still using it??) or the green monster - aka Spring.. :-) Pls do not understand me wrong, I somehow like Spring. It becomes with years pretty huge and now you need a Framework for the Framework to make it maintainable (Spring Boot). At the end Spring is a DI thing, so something technical. The respectable Spring Ecosystem is huge, it offers lot of building blocks to solve technical and infrastructural problems.. and the company behind it, is well funded :-) Again, why do we code ? Well yes, to solve problems, not to deal with technical/infrastructural challenges as a primary goal. There is Christmas soon and if I would have some free wishes, I would like to have a Java Framework that solves purely (business) problems, that interacts smoothly with the technical solutions, implemented by the Spring guys. Spring is well funded, they are doing a good job in solving all sorts of infrastructural things, but Spring is NOT the right Framework to solve business problems. Disclaimer - it is my own opinion, feel free to argue in a different way. For me Spring is a abstraction of an abstraction and at the end a POJO thing and with some DI. As we learned, POJOs are not enough to solve problems we are facing in the real world. So imagine Apache Polygene will be the *missing* business stack that Java is still lacking and is capable to interact with Spring to include all sorts of already available Spring building blocks - that would be really great and definitely a unique thing. Cheers, Jiri
