[news.eclipse.technology.equinox] Alternative runtimes (Re: Work items p

["ted stockwell" <ted.stockwell@xxxxxxxxxx>]

"Pascal Rapicault" <pascal_rapicault@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:b5vrhk$fl1$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Hello everybody,
>
> Jeff and I posted lists of work items on every "work areas" pages.
> Sign up for the items you want to work on by responding to the
> newsgroup or directly updating the webpage.
>
> Obviously those lists are not frozen and will evolve as items will show
up.
>
> Some items are already attributed, but help is always welcome!
>
> Waiting to hear from you,
>

Since I am already working on plugin-based alternative runtime
implementations for JMX and Tomcat I will follow up by filling in the 'State
of the Art' table for JMX and Tomcat and posting the result to the list.  I
also would be more than happy to donate my JBoss JMX, Tomcat, JBoss EJB, and
Apache Axis plugins if they are deemed to be appropriate for Equinox.
Eventually I would like to get these plugins to where they are kinda like
the OSGi HTTP bundle.  Other plugins should be able to dynamically deploy
and undeploy MBeans, web applications, EJBs, and web services.

As a reality check, here is how I see Equinox developing and the difference
between OSGi and Equinox.  To deploy a Servlet in OSGi a bundle would lookup
the HttpService interface and then call specific methods to deploy a
Servlet.  In Equinox I think the procedure would be to use the extension
point registry to lookup a specific extension point and then create a new
extension of that extension point.  The extension point concept adds a level
of power to the whole framework.  Consider this scenario for example:  I
create a plugin that exports an extension point for registering web
services.  Later I can add another plugin that creates RMI facades to any
registered web services.  This can be done in Equinox in a way that is
decoupled from the web services plugin.  The RMI plugin will listen to
registrations against the web services extension point.  In OSGi I would
have to add the capability to listen for registrations to each service that
I intended, in advance, to be extendable in this way.

I am more interested in how to eventually use dynamic plugins to implement a
secure, updateable, extendable, and interoperable web service framework than
I am in the specifics of dynamic plugins themselves.   Implementing such a
web service framework for publishing web services, and client-side plugins
for consuming web services, is my goal for my JLense project.  This is where
my interests and the Equinox project overlap.  Besides, architecting dynamic
plugins will be the truly hard part of Equinox so I'm more than happy to
leave that to the real experts!


ted stockwell
jlense.sf.net