[stp-dev] STP Toolbox : useful helpers for SOA needs

[Marc Dutoo <marc.dutoo@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi all

At the last SCOrWare meeting, we've discovered that several people were 
developing similar things for similar SOA needs, and wondered if we 
could work together on such SOA helpers in a more generic manner, which 
would logically go in STP ("Toolbox" subproject ?). As promised, I'm 
writing this mail about it.

The first identified need is about generating java from wsdl.

Here are the known use cases.
  * Mickaël Istria in JWT4SOA / Scarbo does it using CXF at devtime to 
allow a process engine to call (web, rmi, sca...) services in a java 
world using the Frascati SCA service platform.
  * Mohammed El Jai in PEtALS does it (at runtime ?) using CXF to 
bridge the Frascati java and the JBI XML ESB worlds
  * errr... who's the third, Vincent, Valerio or Damien ??

It's useful do create services in the "wsdl first" manner, call them in 
an eclipse tool or in a runtime engine. Potential needs and issues are :
  * what to generate ? generating only beans, or also service artifacts 
(client, server stub, deployment configuration)
  * what generation technology to use (web services wsdl2java : CXF, 
Axis2 ; beans only : XMLBeans...), what configuration, what standards 
(JAXWS, JAXB or not) ?
  * Making these technologies and configuration pluggable ?
  * making them compatible (ex. using CXF we'll get JAXB beans, so how 
to build them starting from mere POJOs that the WSDL was generated from 
first). Something that could be useful is dozer ( 
http://dozer.sourceforge.net/documentation/xmlbeans.html ) which does 
bean mapping and supports pojo, jaxb, xmlbeans...
  * classloading problems : avoiding conflicting (not) generated classes...
  * some use it in eclipse, some in a runtime platform
  * allowing a degraded behaviour for XML serialization technologies 
(XStream) ?

Next step :
  * could anyone (Vincent ?) create a Wiki page in the STP Wiki at the 
right place so we can contribute there ?
  * could you SCOrWare guys describe your needs and issues better than 
I did ?
  * There should be things already in WTP, do you know about them ?
  * what do other people think about a shared "STP Toolbox" and of the 
wsdl2java need ?

Regards,
Marc Dutoo
Open Wide