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Message-ID: <001e01bf199c$0137a600$832e0209@lankabook.watson.ibm.com>
From: "Sanjiva Weerawarana" <sanjiva@watson.ibm.com>
To: <tomcat-dev@jakarta.apache.org>
Cc: <general@jakarta.apache.org>
Subject: Re: Discussions on generating multiple languages from Jasper - where?
Date: Mon, 18 Oct 1999 15:07:21 -0400
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dIon Gillard writes:
>Which list should I use if I want to start discussing how to implement
>other languages in Jasper?
>
>I can see where code is generated and javac called for Jasper, but want to
>talk design issues with others before I even think about source changes :)

We have developed something called BSF (Bean Scripting Framework, 
http://www.alphaWorks.ibm.com/tech/bsf) which is a scripting architecture
for Java. IBM WebSphere 3.0's JSP engine (which is based on the Sun
Jasper code) now uses BSF to support mutliple language scripting. BSF
supports today JavaScript (Rhino), NetRexx, Jacl, JPython, BML and
LotusXSL. We have internally working code for all active scripting
languages (VBScript, JScript, ...), LotusScript and are working on 
getting Perl integrated as well. WebSphere's JSP's actually support
an optional "language" attribute on scriptlets (in the XML syntax
only) which allows one to actually have *multiple* scripting languages
on the same page. An example for where one may want such capability
is to say access a MS database via an ADO in VB and feed the data into
the Java JSP.

BSF is currently released on binary form, but we're expecting to go
to a full source, free-to-use license within a week or so. Once that
happens we'll be happy to integrate BSF to Jasper (as a prototype of
a way to do multiple languages) or whatever is the right thing. "We"
is probably myself, Matt Duftler (who works in my dept and who did a
bulk of the work of getting BSF plugged into WebSphere's JSP code) 
and Sam Ruby (IBM Software Group, who does a lot of stuff with BSF 
and other scripting issues).

Sanjiva.
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Sanjiva Weerawarana, Ph.D.                 email:  sanjiva@watson.ibm.com
Manager, Component Systems                   tel: +1 914 784 7288 t/l 863
IBM TJ Watson Research Center                fax:         +1 914 784 6324
Hawthorne, NY 10598, USA.       url: http://lanka.watson.ibm.com/~sanjiva
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