"Scott Ferguson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Ted Neward wrote:
> > Does anybody else have a problem with a "production-quality" servlet
> > engine also serving as the reference implementation for servlets
> > and/or JSP? I have always operated under the belief that a "reference
> > implementation" was supposed to be plain-vanilla, no optimizations,
> > stick-to-the-letter-of-the-spec,
> > if-it-ain't-in-the-spec-it-ain't-in-here kind of implementation. JSWDK
> > was precisely this--it demonstrated servlets simply, cleanly (IMHO),
> > without a lot of bells-n-whistles to get in the way. My concern is
> > that Sun's stated intent (by calling it a reference implementation) is
> > at cross-purposes with Apache's stated intent (to make it a
> > production-quality engine). These are, for the most part,
> > mutually-exclusive goals.
>
> <vendor-bias>
> Tomcat isn't really a reference implementation. It's the Apache group's
> servlet implementation. Sun has chosen, for its own reasons, to select
> the Apache group as its preferred servlet vendor. Calling Tomcat a
> "reference implementation" is just marketing fluff.
>
> Orion is a better reference implementation than Tomcat in the sense of
> "if my implementation doesn't do the same thing, then it's probably
> wrong." Orion implements the specs more faithfully than Tomcat does.
>
> Unfortunately, this diminishes Sun's credibility as an impartial
> standards arbiter, but that's Sun's choice. Microsoft doesn't even
> pretend to be impartial with its ASP standard, and it's rather
> successful, so maybe it's not a bad decision.
> </vendor-bias>
I think it's important to distinguish between the political and technical
here
I don't think theres any doubt that endorsing tomcat as a reference
implemention was at least a partially politically motivated decision - hence
the "marketing fluff"
However, from a techinical perpective, I believe that tomcat can/will
function as a good reference implementation. The reasons for this are:
1) tomcat comes with watchdog, the compatibility tests :-)
2) sun originally donated tomcat to apache, and many sun people are still
working on it
3) tomcat is/will be very configurable and thus most if not all of the bells
and whistles which ted found so disturbing are optional, unlike other
vendors implementations where (presumably) the bells and whistles are
mandatory. Thus, a minimal configuration of tomcat would have exactly the
feature set you'd want for a RI.
Of course, the current tomcat isn't there yet, but tomcat.next will
hopefully fit the bill.
Cheers
Geoff
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