Re: Cocoon or Tomcat with Servlets/Taglibs?

2001-11-27 Thread Tomas Espeleta

Interesting question...
basically I agree with you... Cocoon is *just* a framework, so its task is
to give you one (or more) way to do things.
It oblige you and force to use a strong structure (sitemap, Generators,
transformers)...

Everything you do with cocoon can be done by servlets...
but remember that even servlets are a evolution of old cgi-bins written in
perl/C...

There are a lots of reasons that can make you prefer XML to HTML, Java to
C... Cocoon to self-made-stuff!
I think the most important are always the same: speed of development,
separation of logic from content, a STANDARD way. an many more reasons.

Anyway, I hope Cocoon become soon a more widely supported standard. I belive
that soon there will be a lot of new configuration tools and a better
documentation.

- Tomás.

- Original Message -
From: Heath Stewart [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Tuesday, November 27, 2001 6:05 PM
Subject: Cocoon or Tomcat with Servlets/Taglibs?


I'm trying to decide whether or not to use Cocoon or just Tomcat (via
mod_webapp with Apache/SSL) with Servlets, JSP, and Taglibs. What does this
list think? I've done stuff with Cocoon, but frankly, it's more complicated
to map servlets and tag libs which I would use extensively in my site, not
to mention it's easy to build an entire site based on Tomcat with Forte for
Java, since it's all built in. I can also create taglibs and have an xml
tag or something that I would then use Xerces and Xalan to transform the
source XML and XSL files, maybe even the FOP library for some kind of print
servlet. Isn't that basically what Cocoon is doing with the sitemap, just
mapping requests for files (like **.html to **.xml) to a Java class(es)
using Xerces and Xalan to transform the source?

Heath Stewart
Network Administrator / Web Developer
College of Veterinary Medicine
Iowa State University
http://www.vetmed.iastate.edu



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Re: Cocoon or Tomcat with Servlets/Taglibs?

2001-11-27 Thread David Rosenstrauch

I guess another way to look at it is:  what is cocoon well suited for, and what is it 
less well suited for?

 From that perspective, you might want to use cocoon if:

* you need to serve the same content, but on different devices.  Cocoon is good at 
dynamically generating the presentation you need.

* your content is already very heavily xml

* you believe very strongly in the cocoon philosophy of separation of content, logic, 
and presentation (or want to move away from JSP because of its lack of that separation)


You might not want to use cocoon if:

* Your pages are developed by page designers using a templating system

* You prefer a non-XML solution like JSP or Struts


etc.


HTH.


DR


At 06:26 PM 11/27/01 +0100, you wrote:
Interesting question...
basically I agree with you... Cocoon is *just* a framework, so its task is
to give you one (or more) way to do things.
It oblige you and force to use a strong structure (sitemap, Generators,
transformers)...

Everything you do with cocoon can be done by servlets...
but remember that even servlets are a evolution of old cgi-bins written in
perl/C...

There are a lots of reasons that can make you prefer XML to HTML, Java to
C... Cocoon to self-made-stuff!
I think the most important are always the same: speed of development,
separation of logic from content, a STANDARD way. an many more reasons.

Anyway, I hope Cocoon become soon a more widely supported standard. I belive
that soon there will be a lot of new configuration tools and a better
documentation.

- Tomás.

- Original Message -
From: Heath Stewart [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Tuesday, November 27, 2001 6:05 PM
Subject: Cocoon or Tomcat with Servlets/Taglibs?


I'm trying to decide whether or not to use Cocoon or just Tomcat (via
mod_webapp with Apache/SSL) with Servlets, JSP, and Taglibs. What does this
list think? I've done stuff with Cocoon, but frankly, it's more complicated
to map servlets and tag libs which I would use extensively in my site, not
to mention it's easy to build an entire site based on Tomcat with Forte for
Java, since it's all built in. I can also create taglibs and have an xml
tag or something that I would then use Xerces and Xalan to transform the
source XML and XSL files, maybe even the FOP library for some kind of print
servlet. Isn't that basically what Cocoon is doing with the sitemap, just
mapping requests for files (like **.html to **.xml) to a Java class(es)
using Xerces and Xalan to transform the source?

Heath Stewart
Network Administrator / Web Developer
College of Veterinary Medicine
Iowa State University
http://www.vetmed.iastate.edu



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Re: Cocoon or Tomcat with Servlets/Taglibs?

2001-11-27 Thread David Rosenstrauch

Some comments ...


At 11:35 AM 11/27/01 -0600, you wrote:
I'm just trying to figure out if I should take the time and create a
huge sitemap with all the functionality I want


I can understand that.  You want to make sure there's enough of a benefit before you 
put in the work.


I've also looked into
how to use servlets with Cocoon and it isn't pretty


Doesn't have to be, right?  You can just have your sitemap redirect to a servlet, or 
have a form generated by a servlet submit to cocoon.  Should be able to move between 
servlets and cocoon quickly and easily, no?

Other thoughts on this:

* If you're talking about calling servlet code from Cocoon, then you might want to 
consider pulling the code out of the servlet into some common class that can be called 
both from Cocoon (from an XSP page, for example) as well as from the servlet.

* You might want to consider looking into Cocoon Action classes.  They're probably 
much easier to integrate with a Cocoon app than a servlet.


not to mention
everytime I need to add some basic functionality, I need to restart cocoon,
then httpd after tomcat restarts.


Actually, you don't need to.

* XSP pages and your sitemap get automatically re-compiled when changed, without 
restarting Cocoon/Tomcat.  Similarly, changes to XML and XSL files are picked up 
automatically without a re-start.

* Although code (e.g., Action classes) are not picked up automatically, you don't have 
to shut down Tomcat to reload them.  Assuming that you have set up manager access, you 
can use the manager servlet to reload Cocoon without a shutdown (e.g., 
http://localhost/manager/reload?path=/cocoon)



I
could implement my navbars using taglibs instead of XInclude, which would be
easier anyway


Again, your call.  You'll have to decide if the benefit vs. cost of Cocoon is 
sufficient for you to go with it.


HTH.

DR



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Re: Cocoon or Tomcat with Servlets/Taglibs?

2001-11-27 Thread David Rosenstrauch

At 11:38 AM 11/27/01 -0600, you wrote:
...not to mention Cocoon loads a lot of libraries I'll never use but that
Cocoon depends on, like Batik, which Java 1.4 can do without.


You might want to do what I've done:

I've set up a separate dir for my app - separate from my /cocoon directory - and 
that's where I run my app out of.

This dir is a copy of the /cocoon dir, but I've tailored it to remove unnecessary libs 
like Batik (since I know my app isn't using SVG) and that trims the list of loaded 
libs a bit.


DR


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