Mailing-List: contact tomcat-dev-help@jakarta.apache.org; run by ezmlm
Message-ID: <37A88D6D.28E4ADC2@eng.sun.com>
Date: Wed, 04 Aug 1999 11:58:53 -0700
From: James Todd <james.todd@eng.sun.com>
Organization: Sun Microsystems
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: tomcat-dev@jakarta.apache.org
Subject: my perspective ...
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hi -

	due to a few recent and, in my opinion, extreme responses
	to some of the proposals i've gleemed together and have
	laid on the table for review as of late i would like to
	explain my perspectives on life, well, jakarta. btw, i
	had hoped that i wouldn't have to "defend" my stance on
	such issues but none the less i'm doing this to put *all*
	my cards on the table. that and the fact that i failed to
	see the sort of constructive responses to my rebuttal i
	had hoped for (eg what do we mean here, can we consider
	this, should we do it differently) with which i could get
	my teeth into to figure out how best to proceed.

	i do work for sun yet my contributions on jakarta are
	tuned towards "making the configuration, deployment and
	development" of servlets and associated technologies "just
	work" on the most platforms possible. the servlet api is
	clean and well embraced. now, if we can just nail down the
	development, configuration and deployment issues surrounding
	and quite possibly holding servlets hostage life would be
	oh so cool.

	put another way, i am not a corporate *tool*, and as such,
	i can't help but wonder if my proposals would've been met
	in a different light had i posted from another and less
	obvious email address. heck, i could be posting to tomcat-dev
	as another alias acting as a compatriot or devils advocate.
	well, i'm not. i don't do politics. i have basically built
	the sort of critter i'm describing before and i can't believe
	there are real reasons why a thin/remote service built upon
	open standards is not the direction we should be heading ...
	but, none the less, i'm very interested in other constructive
	perspectives.

	some folks want to do applets. i can see huge synergy with
	such folks and much of the server side work i've done. some
	folks are fans of really thin clients (html) which, if
	desinged right, the very same service logic can serve both.

	some folks are fans of java ... some aren't. this is an
	implemenation detail but one which does have extreme merit
	in my book ... and not just because of the domain name of
	my email address. http is pretty powerful. people can share
	data across a wide variety of systems. why can't services
	do the same? that is the picture i'm trying to paint here.
	pretty simple as i see it. where am i wrong? let's discuss
	this constructively, have a beer or two and have some fun
	along the way. good things are bound to happen with a
	multitude of open and complimentary standards with which to
	choose from.

	back to the details, i can clearly see a configuration
	service which relies on open standards followed by one
	of many possible implementations. i personally am ready
	to rock on the proto work ... tomcat is one hell'a proto
	friendly little engine ... no offense ... just my opinion.

<wipingTearsFromEyes>
	i'm going to rev the docs/diags accordingly, continue
	to try and engage interested parties, drill down on
	prototocol, api and message formats and consider proto'ing
	some of these concept with tomcat (an implemenation but
	not formally *the* implemenation).
</wipingTearsFromEyes>

	hope this helps,

- james