[wtp-dev] Regarding the wisdom of export vs deployable factory

[Rob Stryker <rob.stryker@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi all:

Currently there are two ways to turn a project into a jar / war / ear 
etc. The first is to use the export menu selections. The second is to 
use a deployable server adapter.

My question is, what is the wisdom between having two different sections 
of code (not just two entry points, but 2 different pieces of code 
entirely) in charge of compiling the output archive? As an example, the 
JEEDeployableFactory exposes a webtools project in the servertools API. 
You also have the J2EEExportArtifactOperation for exporting.  They both 
seem to do much of the same thing, though slightly differently. One 
(JEEFlexProjDeployable) uses just the virtual component model. The other 
(export) is checking ComponentArchiveLoadAdapter and a whole host of 
parallel model code.

Wouldn't it be wise to have both the export functionality and the 
deployable factories be simply entry points to the same code, rather 
than having huge swaths of duplicate code with slight but undefined 
differences between the two? I do remember in the past there were also 
inconsistencies between the export behavior and a server adapter's 
behavior because of the differences in the export vs deployable code.

Any thoughts?

- Rob Stryker