On 5/4/06, Michael Jouravlev <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
What we has been brought from the stone ages:
* Base Action class does not dispatch events
* DispatchAction and its flavors do, but they do not allow a user to
derive an action class from some another user's base action
What we got now in 1.2.9 and 1.3.1+ :
* ActionDispatcher resolves the inheritance issue, allowing any action
to dispatch events
* EventActionDispatcher makes dispatching an easy and fun task; it
also allows to separate input phase from render phase, at the same
time it allows to trigger event with links (GET), not only with
buttons (POST).
What appears to be a logical next step:
* Stick dispatching features in base Action, thus making all actions
to be dispatch actions.
Benefits:
* ActionDispatcher will not be needed.
* Any action will be able to dispatch events.
* This makes a mind shift, making people think more in terms of events
and independent webresources, kind of like .NET's code-behind.
Minor drawback:
* only one dispatching behavior can be chosen. Considering all job
done before, we how have best-of-breed EventDispatchAction. Its
features (maybe in some modified manner) should be pushed to base
Action class. For those who rely on old-style DispatchAction or
MappingDispatchAction, they will still be available.
So, the proposed feature changes nothing for regular Action users, it
changes nothing for old DispatchAction users, but it makes things a
lot simpler for those who want to switch to event-based paradigm with
as little efforts as possible.
Thoughts? Objections? Suggestions?
Personally I'm against this because IMO it just adds
confusion/complexity to the Action class that is unnecessary for users
who don't want to use the "dispatch" style. I also think that the
current provision for "dispatch" flavours isn't a real barrier for
people to adopt the style that you're promoting here.
For people not limited/restricted by having to inherit from a "base"
action class, they can simply inherit from one of the DispatchAction
falvours.
For people limited/restricted by having to inherit from a "base"
action class, they can use the ActionDispatcher (or
EventActionDispatcher) to easily plug in dispatch behaviour.
Simply making the code changes you suggest will not shift people's
mindset - you would need to document the choices available. IMO
documentation is more important than merging the dispatch logic into
the Action class and if Action and DispatchAction flavours were better
documented you could achieve the same without changing the code at
all.
I don't use any of the DispatchAction/ActionDispatcher flavours and am
happy with "simple" Actions. If we do document this better I would
prefer we didn't promote one style over the other - but simply layout
what the choices people have and let them decide.
Niall
Michael.
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