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Message-Id: <s09f5f26.015@cs-emo.csir.co.za>
Date: Mon, 10 May 2004 10:53:04 +0200
From: "Derek Hohls" <DHohls@csir.co.za>
To: <users@cocoon.apache.org>
Subject: MVC Framework - options?
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After a hint on another thread, I see a possible way fwd
for trying to handle cases for complex web applications
where the business and data access layers should be kept
separate from the overall flow and display of information.

It seems like there is a fair amount of controversy / debate
on which data persistence layer (O/R mapping) tool to use; 
both Hibernate and JDO are strong contenders and there are 
pros and cons to each.  Hibernate does seem like a well-
established and well-documented OS project, with good 
community  support:

Hibernate:
http://www.hibernate.org/ 

The Spring framework was designed in an attempt to
make it straightforward to handle business logic in the
"M" part of the MVC approach:

Spring:
http://www.springframework.org/

There a number of articles on using Hibernate and Spring 
together e.g.:
http://hibernate.bluemars.net/110.html 
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/j-hibern/?ca=dnt-515


There is a *very* interesting article on using Hibernate
and Spring (together with Struts as the UI) - 
http://www.onjava.com/pub/a/onjava/2004/04/07/wiringwebapps.html 
I will quote one paragraph  (my emphasis):

"This article will discuss how to combine several well-known 
frameworks to achieve loose coupling, how to structure your 
architecture, and how to enforce a consistent design across 
all application layers. The challenge is combining frameworks 
so that each layer is exposed to each other in a loosely coupled 
manner, regardless of the underlying technologies. This article 
will discuss one strategy for combining frameworks using three 
popular open source frameworks. For the presentation layer 
we  will use Struts; for our business layer we will use Spring; 
and for  our persistence layer we will use Hibernate. You should 
be able to  substitute *any one* of these frameworks in your 
application and get  the same effect. "

>From a brief reading of this, it seems that Cocoon could be
very easily adapted as the UI, as its presentation capabilities
are certainly more powerful than Struts (and arguably flow is
currently the most innovative and direct approach to web 
application control). 

So - here's the challenge - is there anyone out there with the
knowledge and the savvy to take what has been done already
(the code from the above article) and adapt it to use with 
Cocoon as the UI?  I don't think it will be that hard and I believe 
it will be of direct benefit to our  community  (ito grappling with 
complex issues) and can also  have a positive role in the 
promotion of Cocoon in related, but perhaps less-informed, open 
source projects.

Any comments and thoughts on this overall approach would be
very welcome!

Thanks
Derek


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