| [wtp-jst-dev] Summary of EJB 3.0 Persistence Meetings, EclipseWorld, 2005-08-29, 30 |
The following people attended:
Versant: Robert Greene
Oracle: Shaun Smith, Neil Hauge, Karen
Moore
JBoss: Marshall Culpepper, Koen Aers
SolarMetric: Patrick Linskey
BEA: Tim Wagner, Ted Bashor, Paul Meijer
IBM: Arthur Ryman, Der-Ping Chou
We discussed the goals and approaches
of the two projects and agreed that the projects had much in common. We
also discussed the history and cleared up several points of confusion.
For example, although an ORM runtime was part of the original Versant proposal,
it is not included now. Also, the Versant code base is not a port of their
pre-existing Swing-based product. It has been rewritten from scratch for
Eclipse.
There was unanimous agreement that the
projects would benefit from cooperation. There is a lot of work to do and
a limited amount of resource. In view of the close similarity bewteen the
project, it makes a lot of sense to cooperate and share the development
effort. This cooperation will also make it easier to adopt the code bases
when they move out of the Technology projects and into WTP and DTP.
The split of code between WTP and DTP
requires further analysis. The EJB 3.0-specific parts of the code belong
in WTP, but any more general framworks, e.g. that would support JDO or
other types of mapping, belong in DTP.
The Versant project is currently provisioned
at Eclipse and they have released an initial milestone build. The Oracle
project is currently waiting for legal signoffs before it can be provisioned.
However, Oracle does have a running version.
Both projects currently have EMF-based
mapping models and it was agreed that this is the best initial candidate
for code sharing.
Since the Versant project has been provisioned,
all parties are free to review the Versant EMF model and are encouraged
to do so asap. However, review of the Oracle EMF model should wait until
it has been checked into the Eclipse CVS repository. The contact points
for the EMF models were identifed as Paul Fullbright for Oracle and David
Tinker for Versant. We agreed to hold a telecon to discuss the models on
September 14. The telecon will be hosted by Oracle. It was also agreed
that a face-to-face meeting to review the code bases would be useful. This
meeting will be scheduled after Oracle checks in its code.
Since both projects have running code,
it was decided that the best way to proceed was to hold a "Show and
Tell" session on Tuesday.
The meeting adjourned to Carmine's for
dinner where much beer and pasta was consumed.
Tuesday, 2005-8-30,
5:15 PM
Attendees from Monday were joined by:
Oracle; Mike Keith
Sybase: John Graham, Karl Reti
Robert Greene demoed the Versant code
first. Robert showed Java annotation code assist, outline views, property
sheets, and live ER diagrams. There is a Flash demo on the project Web
site.[1]
Shaun Smith demoed next and showed very
similar capability, the main visible difference being lack of ER diagrams.
Shaun even arranged his views to match those of Versant.
Both projects showed a lot of capability
and progress. This similarity reinforced the conclusion that it was pointless
to continue to duplicate effort. Neither project had an editor for the
XML mapping format, or had advanced semantic validation, quick fixes, etc.
Taking the current code bases to the level of function expected by JDT
users will require a lot of work so it is highly desirable to pool development
resources.
These demos went a long way towards
raising everyone's comfort level. IMHO, the combined resources of these
projects are a "Dream Team". There was an incredible amount of
EJB 3.0 ORM expertise, experience, and development talent in the room.
Eclipse users are in for a real treat if these projects can come together.
The meeting adjourned to Rosa Mexicano
for dinner where more beer and tequila flowed.
[1] http://eclipse.org/jsr220orm/
Arthur Ryman,
IBM Software Group, Rational Division
blog: http://ryman.eclipsedevelopersjournal.com/
phone: +1-905-413-3077, TL 969-3077
assistant: +1-905-413-2411, TL 969-2411
fax: +1-905-413-4920, TL 969-4920
mobile: +1-416-939-5063, text: 4169395063@xxxxxxx