-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hi,
Hivemind does provide the plugability to you are looking for in the sense that you could have each plug-in defined as a service and each plug-in providing it's own information (for simplicity, the name and service id ) to a central configuration (a configuration point) that can be accessed at runtime by a plug-in lookup manager. To load a particular plug-in, it could use the plug-in name to lookup the associated plug-in service id (from the configuration point). I guess what this brings to you is a dynamic way of registering new plugins, simply dropping in a new plug-in jar would automagically register it in the system. The command line switches could then, in theory, be reduced to the user selecting the name of which plug-in to use. Hope that helps somewhat. Cheers, Johan mister bean wrote: | I am deep into a project that reads in a data file, massages it, and writes | out reports in various formats(spreadsheets, SVG chart, PDF, etc.). It | currently uses plug-ins for the data massaging and for the various output | formats. These plug-ins are JAR files that are loaded via a standard class | loader. | | Which plug-in to use when is determined by command-line switches. The code | examines them and then loads, let's say, the PDF plugin. Because this is all | done in code, it casts the plug-in location process into stone. I am about | to externalize this step, by using an XML config file. (PDF output? Look up | in the config file which plug-in JAR to use). This way, I can add new | plugins and capabilities without having to change the code. | | Before I make this change, I am beginning to wonder whether HiveMind would | make better sense here. If so, what would it bring me that I don't get by | using a simple XML config file? My sense is that HiveMind is probably | overkill for what I need. But I would appreciate some thoughts from users | before I commit to lots of time on the learning curve (rewarding as that | might be ;-) to solve this specific problem. | | Many thanks in advance. | | ---mr. bean | | - -- you too? -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFHsuC/pHYnED7evioRAiwYAKCNf8w+Kzcy1kXhjmqEAWdowvUHOwCffshX knEuo/Ryn5A+xJTKLsPJbYo= =JW3T -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
