[wtp-dev] WTP Flexible Project Requirements

[Thomas Hallgren <thhal@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I got a request from Jochen to repost some comments i made on the 
wtp-pmc on Todd's project layout,  now available online at 
http://wiki.objectweb.org/eclipse-webtools/Wiki.jsp?page=ProjectLayout.

Todd,
I've reviewed your document. I think it looks very good. I have a few
questions that may concern things beyond the scope of your document but I
feel they are related anyway.

MDA has a concept where you go from a Platform Independent Model (PIM) to a
Platform Specific Model (PSM). It would be great if the project model could
support this so that the PIM had a 1..M to the PSM. I.e. if there's JoNas
specific code in your project it could be kept separate from Websphere
specific code. The right PSM would of course be selected based on where the
user wants to deploy.

When building enterprise apps, its very common that you have several
components with interdependencies. It might be jars that will exist in
several EAR's or jars that will be loaded using a common loader visible to
all EAR's. It might be Object Relational models for databases, various
groups of JSP's etc. Do you have any plans to include some dependency
mechanism? I think it would be extremely nice to have something similar to
the Eclipse plugin structure that could support complex projects during a
long life-cycle. In essence, I'd like to see a way to build an EAR using a
config spec that appoints specific versions of the various components that
should be included. This is of course very much related to the "Team"
concept. Do you have any thoughts in this direction?

Regards,

Thomas Hallgren