- Make Inversion of Control central. By using an IoC framework to wire Struts together, it makes it really easy to extend or improve Struts not only for future development but for users as well. I'd recommend Spring's IoC impl as it is small (>100k), really easy to use, and easily extendable. If we wanted to remain more "agnostic", there are "meta" IoC frameworks that let you plug in Pico/Spring/Avalon, etc.
Personally I suspect that a meta framework is more trouble than it's worth, although I haven't really looked at any too closely. (Have any pointers)
So then, with specific frameworks, I don't understand how Pico's orientation towards constructors works in an environment where beans need to be dynamically instantiated, but perhaps I just haven't thought about it hard enough. Avalon seems too heavy, which leaves us (or me at least) with Spring and HiveMind. I haven't developed with either but so far the docs for Spring give me a warm fuzzy feeling while the HiveMind docs kind of scare me.
- Use XML Schema over DTD's. Give struts config its own default namespace to make it easier for users to mix in elements of other namespaces. An example would be adding custom documentation attributes and elements. Of course the usual arguments for XML Schema over DTD's apply as well.
XML Schema?! Naw, RelaxNG!!! After all, it is "now an international standard" (http://blogs.codehaus.org/people/bob/archives/000505_standards_are_great_everyone_should_have_one.html)
- Replace paths with URL's, allowing for a default protocol. An action path would look like "action://foo" or a tiles forward would be "tiles://tilesdef" This would make it easy to plug in handlers to support different presentation engines. If no protocol is specified, the path is handled as usual.
I'm a little sketched out about assigning schemes of our own. I see the motivation, and think the goal is good. Wonder if we could find another mechanism.
- As Ted said, contine with the wildcard theme. Struts should do everything possible to cut down configuration.
hear, hear! (, hear, hear, hear!!)
- Also, again totally agreeing with Ted, make everything interface based,
a few more hears here ;^)
--
Joe Germuska [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://blog.germuska.com "We want beef in dessert if we can get it there."
-- Betty Hogan, Director of New Product Development, National Cattlemen's Beef Association
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