making Roller Planet a standalone project

[Allen Gilliland-3]

I mentioned this to Dave a while back, but I have made a fairly
significant number of improvements to the Roller Planet code to work it
into a standalone application which we use on planets.sun.com.

I am happy to commit those changes back to the Roller SVN repository but
the changes I've made are not really compatible with the way Roller
manages the Planet project right now, so it would be a major PITA to
revert things.  Instead I'd like to propose that the Roller Planet code
be moved in the SVN repository so that it effectively stands as its own
project.  It would still be a part of Roller, just instead of treating
Roller like 1 project with multiple modules it would actually be treated
like multiple projects.

The svn command would basically be ...

svn copy <rollersvn>/trunk/apps/planet <rollersvn>/planet/trunk

... this makes "planet" a project within Roller and it would have its
own trunk/branches/tags which allow it to be worked on completely
independently of the Roller Weblogger code.

The actual code changes I have to offer are numerous, but include ..

* cleanup and bug fixes to tighten up JPA backend.
* merging of static & runtime configs into a single class.
* config class is no longer static which promotes more DI.
* some class renaming to fix a naming clash problem.
* improvements to bootstrapping process to promote more DI.
* elimination of lots of unused code.
* cleanup of exception throwing/handling.
* lots more unit tests, including unit tests for most struts2 actions.
* simplification and streamlining for UI.

Anyone interested in this?  thoughts?  comments?

-- Allen

[Nathan Beyer-3]

Personally, I think that would help to clarify the separation of the
projects. It would be nice to see 'weblogger' get rearranged a bit at the
same.

-Nathan

On Wed, Jun 25, 2008 at 3:32 PM, Allen Gilliland <Allen.Gilliland@...>
wrote:

> I mentioned this to Dave a while back, but I have made a fairly significant
> number of improvements to the Roller Planet code to work it into a
> standalone application which we use on planets.sun.com.
>
> I am happy to commit those changes back to the Roller SVN repository but
> the changes I've made are not really compatible with the way Roller manages
> the Planet project right now, so it would be a major PITA to revert things.
>  Instead I'd like to propose that the Roller Planet code be moved in the SVN
> repository so that it effectively stands as its own project.  It would still
> be a part of Roller, just instead of treating Roller like 1 project with
> multiple modules it would actually be treated like multiple projects.
>
> The svn command would basically be ...
>
> svn copy <rollersvn>/trunk/apps/planet <rollersvn>/planet/trunk
>
> ... this makes "planet" a project within Roller and it would have its own
> trunk/branches/tags which allow it to be worked on completely independently
> of the Roller Weblogger code.
>
> The actual code changes I have to offer are numerous, but include ..
>
> * cleanup and bug fixes to tighten up JPA backend.
> * merging of static & runtime configs into a single class.
> * config class is no longer static which promotes more DI.
> * some class renaming to fix a naming clash problem.
> * improvements to bootstrapping process to promote more DI.
> * elimination of lots of unused code.
> * cleanup of exception throwing/handling.
> * lots more unit tests, including unit tests for most struts2 actions.
> * simplification and streamlining for UI.
>
> Anyone interested in this?  thoughts?  comments?
>
> -- Allen
>
>
>
>
>

[Craig L Russell]

Hi,

I agree that it would be good to separate Planet from roller so they  
can be released independently etc.

One thing to consider is to make both Planet and roller sub-projects  
explicitly, as in

svn copy <rollersvn>/trunk/apps/planet <rollersvn>/planet/trunk
svn move <rollersvn>/trunk <rollersvn>/core/trunk

Whatever you call roller core, it might be cleaner. No strong opinion,  
just other projects seem to have this structure...

Craig

On Jun 25, 2008, at 6:42 PM, Nathan Beyer wrote:

> Personally, I think that would help to clarify the separation of the
> projects. It would be nice to see 'weblogger' get rearranged a bit  
> at the
> same.
>
> -Nathan
>
> On Wed, Jun 25, 2008 at 3:32 PM, Allen Gilliland <Allen.Gilliland@...
> >
> wrote:
>
>> I mentioned this to Dave a while back, but I have made a fairly  
>> significant
>> number of improvements to the Roller Planet code to work it into a
>> standalone application which we use on planets.sun.com.
>>
>> I am happy to commit those changes back to the Roller SVN  
>> repository but
>> the changes I've made are not really compatible with the way Roller  
>> manages
>> the Planet project right now, so it would be a major PITA to revert  
>> things.
>> Instead I'd like to propose that the Roller Planet code be moved in  
>> the SVN
>> repository so that it effectively stands as its own project.  It  
>> would still
>> be a part of Roller, just instead of treating Roller like 1 project  
>> with
>> multiple modules it would actually be treated like multiple projects.
>>
>> The svn command would basically be ...
>>
>> svn copy <rollersvn>/trunk/apps/planet <rollersvn>/planet/trunk
>>
>> ... this makes "planet" a project within Roller and it would have  
>> its own
>> trunk/branches/tags which allow it to be worked on completely  
>> independently
>> of the Roller Weblogger code.
>>
>> The actual code changes I have to offer are numerous, but include ..
>>
>> * cleanup and bug fixes to tighten up JPA backend.
>> * merging of static & runtime configs into a single class.
>> * config class is no longer static which promotes more DI.
>> * some class renaming to fix a naming clash problem.
>> * improvements to bootstrapping process to promote more DI.
>> * elimination of lots of unused code.
>> * cleanup of exception throwing/handling.
>> * lots more unit tests, including unit tests for most struts2  
>> actions.
>> * simplification and streamlining for UI.
>>
>> Anyone interested in this?  thoughts?  comments?
>>
>> -- Allen
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>

Craig Russell
Architect, Sun Java Enterprise System http://java.sun.com/products/jdo
408 276-5638 mailto:Craig.Russell@...
P.S. A good JDO? O, Gasp!

[Dave Johnson-8]

On Wed, Jun 25, 2008 at 4:32 PM, Allen Gilliland
<Allen.Gilliland@...> wrote:

> I mentioned this to Dave a while back, but I have made a fairly significant
> number of improvements to the Roller Planet code to work it into a
> standalone application which we use on planets.sun.com.
>
> I am happy to commit those changes back to the Roller SVN repository but the
> changes I've made are not really compatible with the way Roller manages the
> Planet project right now, so it would be a major PITA to revert things.
>  Instead I'd like to propose that the Roller Planet code be moved in the SVN
> repository so that it effectively stands as its own project.  It would still
> be a part of Roller, just instead of treating Roller like 1 project with
> multiple modules it would actually be treated like multiple projects.
>
> The svn command would basically be ...
>
> svn copy <rollersvn>/trunk/apps/planet <rollersvn>/planet/trunk
>
> ... this makes "planet" a project within Roller and it would have its own
> trunk/branches/tags which allow it to be worked on completely independently
> of the Roller Weblogger code.
>
> The actual code changes I have to offer are numerous, but include ..
>
> Anyone interested in this?  thoughts?  comments?

Definitely interested.

I'd love to see those changes in planet and separating Roller and
Planet is the right thing to do.

- Dave

[Allen Gilliland-3]

Craig L Russell wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I agree that it would be good to separate Planet from roller so they can
> be released independently etc.
>
> One thing to consider is to make both Planet and roller sub-projects
> explicitly, as in
>
> svn copy <rollersvn>/trunk/apps/planet <rollersvn>/planet/trunk
> svn move <rollersvn>/trunk <rollersvn>/core/trunk
>
> Whatever you call roller core, it might be cleaner. No strong opinion,
> just other projects seem to have this structure...

yeah, I like that idea too.  the name we've been using is 'weblogger',
which identifies the blog server part of the project.

i also like the idea of allowing people to commit plugins to the
repository, which he haven't done so far.  we tried using java.net for a
plugin repository but i think that's been a failed experiment and it
would be far more ideal to let people maintain their plugins in apache
svn.  i think that's easier for everyone and would help boost
participation in the project.

i think we still want to keep the plugin development separate from the
core codebase of the application though, so maybe a structure like this?

<rollersvn>/weblogger/core/trunk (blog server main codebase)
<rollersvn>/weblogger/plugins/* (where users contribute plugins)
<rollersvn>/planet/core/trunk (aggregation server main codebase)

-- Allen

>
> Craig
>
> On Jun 25, 2008, at 6:42 PM, Nathan Beyer wrote:
>
>> Personally, I think that would help to clarify the separation of the
>> projects. It would be nice to see 'weblogger' get rearranged a bit at the
>> same.
>>
>> -Nathan
>>
>> On Wed, Jun 25, 2008 at 3:32 PM, Allen Gilliland
>> <Allen.Gilliland@...>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> I mentioned this to Dave a while back, but I have made a fairly
>>> significant
>>> number of improvements to the Roller Planet code to work it into a
>>> standalone application which we use on planets.sun.com.
>>>
>>> I am happy to commit those changes back to the Roller SVN repository but
>>> the changes I've made are not really compatible with the way Roller
>>> manages
>>> the Planet project right now, so it would be a major PITA to revert
>>> things.
>>> Instead I'd like to propose that the Roller Planet code be moved in
>>> the SVN
>>> repository so that it effectively stands as its own project.  It
>>> would still
>>> be a part of Roller, just instead of treating Roller like 1 project with
>>> multiple modules it would actually be treated like multiple projects.
>>>
>>> The svn command would basically be ...
>>>
>>> svn copy <rollersvn>/trunk/apps/planet <rollersvn>/planet/trunk
>>>
>>> ... this makes "planet" a project within Roller and it would have its
>>> own
>>> trunk/branches/tags which allow it to be worked on completely
>>> independently
>>> of the Roller Weblogger code.
>>>
>>> The actual code changes I have to offer are numerous, but include ..
>>>
>>> * cleanup and bug fixes to tighten up JPA backend.
>>> * merging of static & runtime configs into a single class.
>>> * config class is no longer static which promotes more DI.
>>> * some class renaming to fix a naming clash problem.
>>> * improvements to bootstrapping process to promote more DI.
>>> * elimination of lots of unused code.
>>> * cleanup of exception throwing/handling.
>>> * lots more unit tests, including unit tests for most struts2 actions.
>>> * simplification and streamlining for UI.
>>>
>>> Anyone interested in this?  thoughts?  comments?
>>>
>>> -- Allen
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>
> Craig Russell
> Architect, Sun Java Enterprise System http://java.sun.com/products/jdo
> 408 276-5638 mailto:Craig.Russell@...
> P.S. A good JDO? O, Gasp!
>

[Alexander Coles]

On Jun 27, 2008, at 1:42 AM, Allen Gilliland wrote:

>
>
> Craig L Russell wrote:
>> Hi,
>> I agree that it would be good to separate Planet from roller so  
>> they can be released independently etc.
>> One thing to consider is to make both Planet and roller sub-
>> projects explicitly, as in
>> svn copy <rollersvn>/trunk/apps/planet <rollersvn>/planet/trunk
>> svn move <rollersvn>/trunk <rollersvn>/core/trunk
>> Whatever you call roller core, it might be cleaner. No strong  
>> opinion, just other projects seem to have this structure...
>
> yeah, I like that idea too.  the name we've been using is  
> 'weblogger', which identifies the blog server part of the project.
>
> i also like the idea of allowing people to commit plugins to the  
> repository, which he haven't done so far.  we tried using java.net  
> for a plugin repository but i think that's been a failed experiment  
> and it would be far more ideal to let people maintain their plugins  
> in apache svn.  i think that's easier for everyone and would help  
> boost participation in the project.
>
> i think we still want to keep the plugin development separate from  
> the core codebase of the application though, so maybe a structure  
> like this?
>
> <rollersvn>/weblogger/core/trunk (blog server main codebase)
> <rollersvn>/weblogger/plugins/* (where users contribute plugins)
> <rollersvn>/planet/core/trunk (aggregation server main codebase)
>
> -- Allen

Speaking as someone pretty new to this list, this gets my thumbs up.  
Anything that would make it easier for users to contribute plugins  
would be great.

Incubating, experimental plugins perhaps belong in their own repos  
(I've used git repos for mine), but once they "graduate", having them  
in the main Roller SVN repo would make sense.

Just browsing the CVS code on java.net is *extremely* sluggish!

Alex

[Angel Vera-2]

I like the idea of splitting the plugins and utilities. I think part of the failure of keeping them in java.net has been due to the fact that is a different repository than apache, and it just has the feeling that the plugins are not managed by roller. At least that was the feeling that I got.. :)
----- Original Message ----
From: Allen Gilliland <Allen.Gilliland@...>
To: dev@...
Sent: Thursday, June 26, 2008 7:42:34 PM
Subject: Re: making Roller Planet a standalone project



Craig L Russell wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I agree that it would be good to separate Planet from roller so they can
> be released independently etc.
>
> One thing to consider is to make both Planet and roller sub-projects
> explicitly, as in
>
> svn copy <rollersvn>/trunk/apps/planet <rollersvn>/planet/trunk
> svn move <rollersvn>/trunk <rollersvn>/core/trunk
>
> Whatever you call roller core, it might be cleaner. No strong opinion,
> just other projects seem to have this structure...

yeah, I like that idea too.  the name we've been using is 'weblogger',
which identifies the blog server part of the project.

i also like the idea of allowing people to commit plugins to the
repository, which he haven't done so far.  we tried using java.net for a
plugin repository but i think that's been a failed experiment and it
would be far more ideal to let people maintain their plugins in apache
svn.  i think that's easier for everyone and would help boost
participation in the project.

i think we still want to keep the plugin development separate from the
core codebase of the application though, so maybe a structure like this?

<rollersvn>/weblogger/core/trunk (blog server main codebase)
<rollersvn>/weblogger/plugins/* (where users contribute plugins)
<rollersvn>/planet/core/trunk (aggregation server main codebase)

-- Allen

>
> Craig
>
> On Jun 25, 2008, at 6:42 PM, Nathan Beyer wrote:
>
>> Personally, I think that would help to clarify the separation of the
>> projects. It would be nice to see 'weblogger' get rearranged a bit at the
>> same.
>>
>> -Nathan
>>
>> On Wed, Jun 25, 2008 at 3:32 PM, Allen Gilliland
>> <Allen.Gilliland@...>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> I mentioned this to Dave a while back, but I have made a fairly
>>> significant
>>> number of improvements to the Roller Planet code to work it into a
>>> standalone application which we use on planets.sun.com.
>>>
>>> I am happy to commit those changes back to the Roller SVN repository but
>>> the changes I've made are not really compatible with the way Roller
>>> manages
>>> the Planet project right now, so it would be a major PITA to revert
>>> things.
>>> Instead I'd like to propose that the Roller Planet code be moved in
>>> the SVN
>>> repository so that it effectively stands as its own project.  It
>>> would still
>>> be a part of Roller, just instead of treating Roller like 1 project with
>>> multiple modules it would actually be treated like multiple projects.
>>>
>>> The svn command would basically be ...
>>>
>>> svn copy <rollersvn>/trunk/apps/planet <rollersvn>/planet/trunk
>>>
>>> ... this makes "planet" a project within Roller and it would have its
>>> own
>>> trunk/branches/tags which allow it to be worked on completely
>>> independently
>>> of the Roller Weblogger code.
>>>
>>> The actual code changes I have to offer are numerous, but include ..
>>>
>>> * cleanup and bug fixes to tighten up JPA backend.
>>> * merging of static & runtime configs into a single class.
>>> * config class is no longer static which promotes more DI.
>>> * some class renaming to fix a naming clash problem.
>>> * improvements to bootstrapping process to promote more DI.
>>> * elimination of lots of unused code.
>>> * cleanup of exception throwing/handling.
>>> * lots more unit tests, including unit tests for most struts2 actions.
>>> * simplification and streamlining for UI.
>>>
>>> Anyone interested in this?  thoughts?  comments?
>>>
>>> -- Allen
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>
> Craig Russell
> Architect, Sun Java Enterprise System http://java.sun.com/products/jdo
> 408 276-5638 mailto:Craig.Russell@...
> P.S. A good JDO? O, Gasp!
>

      __________________________________________________________________
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[Dave Johnson-8]

On Thu, Jun 26, 2008 at 7:42 PM, Allen Gilliland
<Allen.Gilliland@...> wrote:
> i also like the idea of allowing people to commit plugins to the repository,
> which he haven't done so far.  we tried using java.net for a plugin
> repository but i think that's been a failed experiment and it would be far
> more ideal to let people maintain their plugins in apache svn.  i think
> that's easier for everyone and would help boost participation in the
> project.

+1

I agree. We should stop using the roller.dev.java.net site and
consolidate plugins and themes at Apache Roller.

- Dave

[Allen Gilliland-3]

I haven't heard anyone against the idea, so what I am hoping to do is
spend a little bit of time tomorrow to get this done.  Since I'll just
be copying the Planet code to its new location this will be a completely
non-destructive change and if it doesn't fit for some reason it can be
blown away very easily.

-- Allen


Dave wrote:

> On Thu, Jun 26, 2008 at 7:42 PM, Allen Gilliland
> <Allen.Gilliland@...> wrote:
>> i also like the idea of allowing people to commit plugins to the repository,
>> which he haven't done so far.  we tried using java.net for a plugin
>> repository but i think that's been a failed experiment and it would be far
>> more ideal to let people maintain their plugins in apache svn.  i think
>> that's easier for everyone and would help boost participation in the
>> project.
>
> +1
>
> I agree. We should stop using the roller.dev.java.net site and
> consolidate plugins and themes at Apache Roller.
>
> - Dave

[Nathan Beyer-3]

+1 moving the themes and plugins as well

On Fri, Jun 27, 2008 at 8:30 AM, Dave <snoopdave@...> wrote:

> On Thu, Jun 26, 2008 at 7:42 PM, Allen Gilliland
> <Allen.Gilliland@...> wrote:
> > i also like the idea of allowing people to commit plugins to the
> repository,
> > which he haven't done so far.  we tried using java.net for a plugin
> > repository but i think that's been a failed experiment and it would be
> far
> > more ideal to let people maintain their plugins in apache svn.  i think
> > that's easier for everyone and would help boost participation in the
> > project.
>
> +1
>
> I agree. We should stop using the roller.dev.java.net site and
> consolidate plugins and themes at Apache Roller.
>
> - Dave
>

[Allen Gilliland-3]

k. check it out if you are interested ...

svn co https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/roller/planet/core/trunk 
roller-planet

a few things about the changes ...

* project layout is directly from the java blueprints recommendation for
a j2ee webapp.  everything needed for the project is included and should
be pretty simple to understand.

* there is no netbeans project directory and i prefer it that way, so i
have that directory set to svn:ignore.  how you setup your IDE is your
business and since the project doesn't require these files in any way i
just assume let each developer manage them independently.  i plan to
create a simple wiki page on how to setup a Roller Planet development
environment in netbeans as an alternative.

* i scrapped the sql generation scripts used in the weblogger project
and went with simple mysql based static files (setup/sql).  my feeling
here is that we are not a large enough project/community to claim we
support lots of dbs and AFAIK none of the main developers really test
against anything other than mysql anyways.  if someone wants to use an
alternate db we can create a wiki page explaining how to do it, but
realistically we don't have the resources to officially support lots of
various dbs.

* lots of code changes, but those should be simple enough to follow by
looking at the code.  very few fundamental changes, mostly just
streamlining things.


as for things that i am still planning to do ...

* i have a port of the new security system planned for Weblogger 4.1
almost ready.  i wanted to do this as a proof of concept for some of my
ideas and the planet code was easier to work from 'cuz it's smaller and
has better unit test coverage.

* i plan to eliminate velocity and just use freemarker.  freemarker is
much better IMO.


that's about it for now.  enjoy.

-- Allen


Allen Gilliland wrote:

> I haven't heard anyone against the idea, so what I am hoping to do is
> spend a little bit of time tomorrow to get this done.  Since I'll just
> be copying the Planet code to its new location this will be a completely
> non-destructive change and if it doesn't fit for some reason it can be
> blown away very easily.
>
> -- Allen
>
>
> Dave wrote:
>> On Thu, Jun 26, 2008 at 7:42 PM, Allen Gilliland
>> <Allen.Gilliland@...> wrote:
>>> i also like the idea of allowing people to commit plugins to the
>>> repository,
>>> which he haven't done so far.  we tried using java.net for a plugin
>>> repository but i think that's been a failed experiment and it would
>>> be far
>>> more ideal to let people maintain their plugins in apache svn.  i think
>>> that's easier for everyone and would help boost participation in the
>>> project.
>>
>> +1
>>
>> I agree. We should stop using the roller.dev.java.net site and
>> consolidate plugins and themes at Apache Roller.
>>
>> - Dave