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From: Andrus Adamchik <andrus@objectstyle.org>
Subject: Re: Raw XML vs. Cayenne GUI
Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2007 11:19:14 +0300
To: user@cayenne.apache.org

Hi Chris,

I don't think anything you said warrants starting a flame war :-) GUI  
tools and text editors are not mutually exclusive. Where the Cayenne  
philosophy may have played out is in the lack of interest in  
documenting the XML format by the developers. But lack of interest  
not equals opposing the idea. I am all for taking the DTD, and  
creating a chapter in the user guide called "Cayenne XML Format" or  
something and/or providing XML snippets next to the GUI screenshots  
throughout the docs. If anybody is willing to participate in this  
effort (even if they are not current committers), let us know - we  
can arrange access to the documentation Wiki.

Thanks
Andrus


On Sep 26, 2007, at 2:57 AM, Chris Farnham wrote:

> I've been using Cayenne on two different projects for a couple of  
> months
> now and am very happy with it.
>
> One thing that I don't like is the reliance upon a graphical composer
> rather than a well documented and defined descriptor file.  I know  
> that
> the Cayenne community views the GUI tool as an important  
> differentiator
> from other ORM frameworks.  But not everyone likes to work with GUI
> tools.  Perhaps it's my Unix roots.
>
> I prefer working directly with Cayenne's XML descriptor.  I wish that
> the schema was documented beyond just a DTD and snippets that people
> pass around on this list.  I also get frustrated when I find
> documentation which explains how to control caching or custom queries
> and all it has are step-by-step screenshots of the GUI tool.
>
> I know that the GUI tool is part of the Cayenne philosophy and I am  
> wary
> of starting a flame-war (perhaps this discussion was happened on this
> list in times past and I haven't seen it).
>
> Do other people feel the same way I do?
> If so, can Cayenne better support both modes of use?
>
> I would like to see documentation and examples that are XML descriptor
> centric as well as GUI centric.
>
> I also think that it'd be an interesting project to look at the  
> current
> XML syntax and make it a little more user/text-editor friendly.  I  
> have
> no concrete ideas on this latter point but I've been playing around  
> with
> DSLs in other areas and it might be neat to either streamline  
> Cayenne's
> XML syntax or create a DSL.  Either of these could be transformed into
> the current XML syntax.
>
> I only raise this issue because I've enjoyed using Cayenne and would
> like to see it improve.
>
> Thanks,
> Chris Farnham
>
> cfarnham@cra.com
>
>
>
>
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