[Geoserver-devel] [Geotools-devel] Do we want a component based web framework or not?

GeoServer GeoServer Developer
1

Hi all,
I'm raising this question before starting to spend any time on a
wicket/facelets proof
of concept.

Do we want to go the road of component based web frameworks or not?
Please do
speak up frankly.

Going component based means a wholly different way of thinking about the
web page,
session handling and so on. Means that the page is not thought as a set
of tags anymore,
but as a tree of components much like a Swing or SWT user interface.
Means that
you don't think anymore about forms and post/get request but do receive
events from
the component on the page.
It means that we can get basic/advanced AJAX capabilities almost for
free (see icefaces
and wicket).
It also means that, choosing the appropriate framework, we can get rid
of jsp and
their compilation, as well as the ugly ability to mix code into the UI
description layer
(plain JSF still use jsps, but facelets has a different view handler and
does parse xhtml
pages as xml, does not compile them).

Sure this is compelling for me, since I'm mostly a Swing developer and
the only web
framework I ever used is ASP.NET, (different language but same approach,
component
based too).
What about you?

Cheers
Andrea

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2

I like very much the idea … I think this would be a great improvement to GeoServer which is becoming something like a geo-framework instead of a single application.

On 8/10/06, Andrea Aime <andrea.aime@anonymised.com> wrote:

Hi all,
I’m raising this question before starting to spend any time on a
wicket/facelets proof
of concept.

Do we want to go the road of component based web frameworks or not?
Please do
speak up frankly.

Going component based means a wholly different way of thinking about the
web page,
session handling and so on. Means that the page is not thought as a set
of tags anymore,
but as a tree of components much like a Swing or SWT user interface.
Means that
you don’t think anymore about forms and post/get request but do receive
events from
the component on the page.
It means that we can get basic/advanced AJAX capabilities almost for
free (see icefaces
and wicket).
It also means that, choosing the appropriate framework, we can get rid
of jsp and
their compilation, as well as the ugly ability to mix code into the UI
description layer
(plain JSF still use jsps, but facelets has a different view handler and
does parse xhtml
pages as xml, does not compile them).

Sure this is compelling for me, since I’m mostly a Swing developer and
the only web
framework I ever used is ASP.NET, (different language but same approach,
component
based too).
What about you?

Cheers
Andrea

Using Tomcat but need to do more? Need to support web services, security?
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easier
Download IBM WebSphere Application Server v.1.0.1 based on Apache Geronimo
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–

Eng. Alessio Fabiani
Vice President/CTO GeoSolutions

http://www.geo-solutions.it

3

Andrea Aime wrote:

I'm raising this question before starting to spend any time on a
wicket/facelets proof
of concept.

Do we want to go the road of component based web frameworks or not?
Please do speak up frankly.
  

I am not sure I want to do *anything* until somebody has time/funding/mandate to do things
really well.

Will respond to the rest of the message later today :wink:
Jody

4

Andrea Aime wrote:

Hi all,

I'm raising this question before starting to spend any time on a
wicket/facelets proof
of concept.

Do we want to go the road of component based web frameworks or not?
Please do speak up frankly.
  

Hi again Andrea,

Yes as part of a module system we do want to allow modules to contribute some form of easy to
use web based control of their configuration information (and for inclusion into the GeoServer product
we want this to be exhaustive).

I had really hoped that JMX Beans would help, thus we could make use of the application container's
management interface. After talking offline some months ago it appears that JMX is just never going to
cut it - I am still not sure if it is something that is expected of a real J2EE application.

Going component based means a wholly different way of thinking about the
web page, session handling and so on. Means that the page is not thought as a set
of tags anymore, but as a tree of components much like a Swing or SWT user interface.
  

Indeed much of our existing pages are built around tags for different things (such as application status, page location and
so on). But your point is valid we should set this up according to widgets, with a different widget being contributed by each
module.

Means that you don't think anymore about forms and post/get request but do receive
events from the component on the page.
  

I need to confirm that we are allowed to control the running modules, and that the modules are responsible for
their own save/load cycle (preferably to that preference module that Jesse proposed).

It means that we can get basic/advanced AJAX capabilities almost for
free (see icefaces and wicket).
It also means that, choosing the appropriate framework, we can get rid
of jsp and
their compilation, as well as the ugly ability to mix code into the UI
description layer
(plain JSF still use jsps, but facelets has a different view handler and
does parse xhtml pages as xml, does not compile them).
  

Andrea can I bring another issue to the for front here - language. GeoServer has been invested in by GeoConnections
Canada and one of the big targets was french language support. I understand we can use property bundles and so on, but
I really need to ensure that language independence remains a top priority (if this helps you choose between widget toolkits
so much the better).

Sure this is compelling for me, since I'm mostly a Swing developer and
the only web framework I ever used is ASP.NET, (different language but same approach,
component based too).
  

I like it, but I would like to see if we can arrange a migration strategy - my earlier suggestion on this topic was
that we define an "web config entry point" per module, and that each module defines a url that can be used for
configuration. Leaving the choice of technology up to the module writer. I had hoped to "surround" these
simple pages with the decorations (navigation, application status) that we are used to. I admit these ideas were
not well thought out, the goal was to do something simple and let module writers concentrate on the geo side of
things.

What about you?
  

Somebody already mentioned the JFace based web toolkit (that may take forever to implement), in an ideal world
I would like to see a strong separation allowing a nice RCP module to configure some of these services via a remoting
technique. Something that plays nicely into a widget based approach.

Cheers,
Jody
PS. Annoyed with the whole JMX thing.

5

I'm definitely +1. It's a big win to be able to plug in new components with a UI.

As for moving away from forms and post/get, that's actually an appeal for me, since I think few GeoServer programmers or potential programmers have tons of experience with straight web programming. We want a system that's more object based, more intuitive for someone who just has strong programming fundamentals without much web experience. I think our primary use case is someone who is a good java programmer, has made some gis centered web service, and wants to get a nice UI for it set up quickly.

I think we should start a RnD wiki page for this, like: http://docs.codehaus.org/display/GEOS/GeoServer+2.0+Technology

We can put up our requirements, and then compare different frameworks against our requirements. Andrea's wicket evaluation looks to be the first one. Before we commit I'd like to see at least 1-2 other evaluations, maybe Gabriel with a more straight JSF one, as I know he has experiences with it.

Chris

Alessio Fabiani wrote:

I like very much the idea ... I think this would be a great improvement to GeoServer which is becoming something like a geo-framework instead of a single application.

On 8/10/06, *Andrea Aime* <andrea.aime@anonymised.com <mailto:andrea.aime@anonymised.com>> wrote:

    Hi all,
    I'm raising this question before starting to spend any time on a
    wicket/facelets proof
    of concept.

    Do we want to go the road of component based web frameworks or not?
    Please do
    speak up frankly.

    Going component based means a wholly different way of thinking about the
    web page,
    session handling and so on. Means that the page is not thought as a set
    of tags anymore,
    but as a tree of components much like a Swing or SWT user interface.
    Means that
    you don't think anymore about forms and post/get request but do receive
    events from
    the component on the page.
    It means that we can get basic/advanced AJAX capabilities almost for
    free (see icefaces
    and wicket).
    It also means that, choosing the appropriate framework, we can get rid
    of jsp and
    their compilation, as well as the ugly ability to mix code into the UI
    description layer
    (plain JSF still use jsps, but facelets has a different view handler
    and
    does parse xhtml
    pages as xml, does not compile them).

    Sure this is compelling for me, since I'm mostly a Swing developer and
    the only web
    framework I ever used is ASP.NET <http://ASP.NET>, (different
    language but same approach,
    component
    based too).
    What about you?

    Cheers
    Andrea

    -------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Using Tomcat but need to do more? Need to support web services,
    security?
    Get stuff done quickly with pre-integrated technology to make your job
    easier
    Download IBM WebSphere Application Server v.1.0.1 based on Apache
    Geronimo
    http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnk&kid=120709&bid=263057&dat=121642
    <http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnk&kid=120709&bid=263057&dat=121642&gt;
    _______________________________________________
    Geotools-devel mailing list
    Geotools-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
    <mailto:Geotools-devel@lists.sourceforge.net>
    https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/geotools-devel

    -------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Using Tomcat but need to do more? Need to support web services,
    security?
    Get stuff done quickly with pre-integrated technology to make your
    job easier
    Download IBM WebSphere Application Server v.1.0.1 based on Apache
    Geronimo
    http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnk&kid=120709&bid=263057&dat=121642
    <http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnk&kid=120709&bid=263057&dat=121642&gt;
    _______________________________________________
    Geoserver-devel mailing list
    Geoserver-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
    <mailto:Geoserver-devel@lists.sourceforge.net>
    https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/geoserver-devel
    <https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/geoserver-devel&gt;

--
-------------------------------------------------------
Eng. Alessio Fabiani
Vice President/CTO GeoSolutions

http://www.geo-solutions.it

--------------------------------------------------------- !DSPAM:1003,44daebe8143401425493344!

------------------------------------------------------------------------

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Using Tomcat but need to do more? Need to support web services, security?
Get stuff done quickly with pre-integrated technology to make your job easier
Download IBM WebSphere Application Server v.1.0.1 based on Apache Geronimo
http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnk&kid=120709&bid=263057&dat=121642

!DSPAM:1003,44daebe8143401425493344!

------------------------------------------------------------------------

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--
Chris Holmes
The Open Planning Project
http://topp.openplans.org