Sunday April 27, 2003

Re: Very Fricken Cool!

I have to echo Matt here, what Dave has done to Roller's Wiki looks very good. Keep up the good work Dave! I try to contribute here and there, but you da man! ( Apr 27 2003, 08:15:35 PM ) Roller Permalink
Trackback: http://www.brainopolis.com/roller/trackback/lance/Weblog/re_very_fricken_cool

Friday April 25, 2003

Help, I'm evil!

Just as was Carlos, so am I

( Apr 25 2003, 11:00:39 PM ) Entertainment Permalink
Trackback: http://www.brainopolis.com/roller/trackback/lance/Weblog/help_i_m_evil

Javier's calendar issue fixed

Dave Johnson checked in a fix for Javier's issue with the calendar rendering. Thanks Dave! Sorry Javier, but you won't get to see it until Anthony is confident in Roller 0.9.7.x.
( Apr 25 2003, 03:35:49 PM ) Roller Permalink [Link]
Trackback: http://www.brainopolis.com/roller/trackback/lance/Weblog/javier_s_calendar_issue_fixed

Re: Velocity vs. JSP

Javier elaborates on the post I previously commented on. It is nice to see the usages explicity expounded on, and I think you will see there is little difference between the JSP+code example and the Velocity version (except that the JSP version has the "ugly" angle brackets: <%= request.getParameter("foo") %> ).

My beef isn't so much with Velocity itself, it does a nice job. It's just that in certain circumstances where a significant amount of logic is required (such as in the calendar example) Velocity's "anti-code" stance becomes a disadvantage. Here again, it is the fanatical proponents of any technology that get my back up: "My technology is the best for everything, and yours stinks!". This isn't Velocity's fault, and one usage I wish I had time to explore more is how it can be used in other contexts. And maybe I'm just dense, but I don't see how the Pull Model as expounded for Velocity et al differs significantly from standard JSP/MVC usage.
( Apr 25 2003, 09:29:30 AM ) Technology Permalink Comments [4]
Trackback: http://www.brainopolis.com/roller/trackback/lance/Weblog/re_velocity_vs_jsp

Wednesday April 23, 2003

"Major" re-org in process

I finally tackled a bit of Roller restructuring I've been wanting to get to: eliminating the need to include the Castor jar when building Roller's presentation layer. There were some "helper" classes that extended classes from the data model (which require Castor's Timestampable interface).

I managed to shift the extra work the helpers were doing around to other appropriate locations. As a matter of fact, this entry is being written on my "testbed". But I've got to wait for Dave to finish branching the 0.9.7.x release before putting this major change to bed.
( Apr 23 2003, 08:21:28 PM ) Roller Permalink
Trackback: http://www.brainopolis.com/roller/trackback/lance/Weblog/major_re_org_in_process

Re: MVC and the last mile

While not really a reply to Javier's post, I did want to comment on a couple parts. Javier mentions the trouble he had with Roller's calendar: let me put it this way - I looked at reimplementing it in Velocity, but it was considerably more work than doing it in plain old Java.

Everyone (it seems) goes on and on about how wonderful Velocity is. I know its primary purpose isn't as a *web* templating system, and it shows. I have read every article, studied the Developer and User docs extensively, and read all the source code - and I still don't see how it is an improvement on JSP, for this one task. Velocity's beauty is that it isn't limited to web content, and that's about it.
( Apr 23 2003, 07:08:00 PM ) Technology Permalink Comments [1] [Link]
Trackback: http://www.brainopolis.com/roller/trackback/lance/Weblog/re_mvc_and_the_last

For further reading on today's posts:

Absurdities and nonsenses : I hope I wasn't misunderstood on my former post about separating data and layout, since I didn't want to critique the Roller's calendar component. It is rendered by a velocimacro and I thought this could be a nice thing, however, Lance doesn't think the same :

Tuesday April 22, 2003

Re: New Roller Themes Redux

Koen Van der Auwera (otherwise known as atog) has contributed his theme, named "clean". Likewise, Greg Klebus has contributed his old FreeRoller theme as "moonshine". moonshine is based on a design by Eric Costello. This brings the total "stock" Themes/Skins in Roller to 11 (eleven).
( Apr 22 2003, 10:25:44 AM ) Roller Permalink
Trackback: http://www.brainopolis.com/roller/trackback/lance/Weblog/re_new_roller_themes_redux1

Monday April 21, 2003

New Roller Themes

I forgot to announce this weekend that the Werner and Cheb (from Brian Blakely) themes have been completed and are in CVS. In addition, Dave and I have been tidying up the Velocimacros considerably. I think we were so focussed on other things that we overlooked some "minor" macro issues. All should be good now.

I will continue adding Themes as they become available to me. If you would like to submit your (unsolicited) Themes, note that I may apply some "editorial" justice.

Later: I rather like graphic on The Perfect System. Not crazy about *all* the color choices, but I like the simple clean implementation.
( Apr 21 2003, 10:53:14 AM ) Roller Permalink
Trackback: http://www.brainopolis.com/roller/trackback/lance/Weblog/new_roller_themes

For further reading on today's posts:

Welcome to the real world : Before i forget : this theme has been integrated in the roller CVS by Lance , so if you want your blog to look like this one, just pick the theme called werner and there you are ... it would be great if you would send me a trackback if you would choose this theme.