Mailing-List: contact dev-help@geronimo.apache.org; run by ezmlm
Precedence: bulk
Reply-To: dev@geronimo.apache.org
Received-SPF: neutral (asf.osuosl.org: local policy)
Message-ID: <430AA4DD.3090002@apache.org>
Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2005 21:23:57 -0700
From: Jeremy Boynes <jboynes@apache.org>
User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.6-1.1.fc3 (X11/20050720)
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: dev@geronimo.apache.org
Subject: Re: Web container-specific configuration
References: <200508230051.j7N0pSPM016164@sun.savoirtech.com>
 <50a15c12ffb704af8681e3b7ef1cff66@yahoo.com>
 <Pine.LNX.4.58.0508222230170.3978@saturn.opentools.org>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.58.0508222230170.3978@saturn.opentools.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Aaron Mulder wrote:
> 	I really disagree with having separate namespaces for the entire
> web deployment plan for Tomcat and Jetty.  It makes Geronimo+Tomcat and
> Geronimo+Jetty totally different products.  If I'm going to release a
> typical application for Geronimo, you're saying that every single bit of
> will be identical except for some stupid plumbing in the web plans?  So
> you must release a Geronimo+Tomcat version of the application and a
> Geronimo+Jetty version of the application?  Say it ain't so!
> 
> 	I'll grant that it's possible to construct an application that 
> works properly in only one container or the other.  But I really object to 
> crafting our whole configuration strategy around that case, which I expect 
> to be very rare.  I think it's going to be much more common that a plan is 
> totally portable, or totally portable with a couple of container-specific 
> tweaks for both containers that don't cause the app to fail if not 
> deployed in its preferred container.  I'd rather make that the baseline, 
> and allow a generic plan and a generic plan with extensions for 0-N web 
> containers.
> 

I would assert that most applications will be targeted at one 
environment or another. Most enterprise users will pick one platform and 
develop for that, most ISVs will pick one platform and distribute for 
that. In either case the overhead of testing all possible combinations 
will prove too expensive.

Let's face reality: Geronimo+Tomcat and Geronimo+Jetty *are* different 
products - they even require separate certification. Anyone distributing 
an application is either going to ship the one they work with, or ship 
pre-tested deployment plans for both (just like they ship plans for 
JBoss, WebLogic or WebSphere).

The choice of web container is actually non-representative of the 
general case as there is relatively little web-container specific 
configuration. When you look at EJB configuration etc. there is much 
more container specific information needed - are we going to define one 
plan for all EJB containers? Say it ain't so!

This experiment with common web container configuration has shown that 
implementations *are* different, even down to basic concepts like what a 
"host" is. And that's just with two sample points, what about others?

--
Jeremy