[castor-dev] GSoC 2010 - Castor - a students introduction

Discussion:

Philipp Erlacher

2010-04-02 14:28:23 UTC

Hello,
I'm interested in participating in Google Summer of Code this year and
I want to contribute to the Castor project.

First, I'm going to briefly introduce myself.
My name is Philipp Erlacher and I am 23 years old. I am an undergraduate
student at the Vienna University of Technology
and my major subject is Software & Information Engineering. I am going
to be graduating in January 2011.

Second, I am interested in doing the "StaX for un-/marshaling" project.
In the course this project, some interesting tasks may arise which I
would like to face:
* separating the MarshalHandler functionality into two layers,
* extending the functionality so that StaX is supported within the XML
data binding framework itself
* evaluating the "partial support for using StaX" and checking whether
to reuse existing code or to rewrite it
* making sure that the greens remains green
* investigating other projects that recently added support for StaX,
like Apache Cocoon

Third, what to I expect to gain from the contribution to Castor?
* knowledge about Castor,
* usage of test driven development and a deepened understanding for
their importance
* having many well tested patches committed,
* having the confidence, that my produced code will help Castor users
and developers,
* being fluent in open source community communication,
* having an awesome 40-hour summer job,
* getting experienced
* fun (learning, reading, coding, thinking = fun)

As Castor is probably "the shortest path between Java objects, XML
documents and relational tables"
I am going to improve my skills in those areas.

Warm regards,
Philipp

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Werner Guttmann

2010-04-05 18:00:10 UTC

Permalink

Hi Philipp,

thanks for the introduction, much appreciated. Given the obvious area of
interest, here's a few things I'd like to get your opinion about before
(whilst) reviewing an official GSOC proposal.

There's already a patch attached to a Jira issue that has (partial)
support for StaX. Could I get your opinion on this ? Whatever comes to
your mind when looking at this for the first time would make a nice read.

I guess we'll take it from there ... ;-).

Cheers
Werner

Post by Philipp Erlacher
Hello,
I'm interested in participating in Google Summer of Code this year and
I want to contribute to the Castor project.
First, I'm going to briefly introduce myself.
My name is Philipp Erlacher and I am 23 years old. I am an undergraduate
student at the Vienna University of Technology
and my major subject is Software& Information Engineering. I am going
to be graduating in January 2011.
Second, I am interested in doing the "StaX for un-/marshaling" project.
In the course this project, some interesting tasks may arise which I
* separating the MarshalHandler functionality into two layers,
* extending the functionality so that StaX is supported within the XML
data binding framework itself
* evaluating the "partial support for using StaX" and checking whether
to reuse existing code or to rewrite it
* making sure that the greens remains green
* investigating other projects that recently added support for StaX,
like Apache Cocoon
Third, what to I expect to gain from the contribution to Castor?
* knowledge about Castor,
* usage of test driven development and a deepened understanding for
their importance
* having many well tested patches committed,
* having the confidence, that my produced code will help Castor users
and developers,
* being fluent in open source community communication,
* having an awesome 40-hour summer job,
* getting experienced
* fun (learning, reading, coding, thinking = fun)
As Castor is probably "the shortest path between Java objects, XML
documents and relational tables"
I am going to improve my skills in those areas.
Warm regards,
Philipp
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Werner Guttmann

2010-04-07 07:26:24 UTC

Permalink

Hi,

just following up myself ..... the Jira issue I am referring to happens
to be

http://jira.codehaus.org/browse/CASTOR-2408

As already said, any feedback appreciated ....

Kind Regards
Werner

Post by Werner Guttmann
Hi Philipp,
thanks for the introduction, much appreciated. Given the obvious area of
interest, here's a few things I'd like to get your opinion about before
(whilst) reviewing an official GSOC proposal.
There's already a patch attached to a Jira issue that has (partial)
support for StaX. Could I get your opinion on this ? Whatever comes to
your mind when looking at this for the first time would make a nice read.
I guess we'll take it from there ... ;-).
Cheers
Werner

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Philipp Erlacher

2010-04-07 14:16:51 UTC

Permalink

Hi Werner,

my approach was to read about StAX before writing about my first look
at the patch.
This took longer than I expected. Sorry about that.

I wrote about my thoughts yesterday. But only related to the issue
2408 description
and not about the whole patch so those writings become quite useless...
After reading the whole patch and having a glance at the test cases here are my
impressions about my second look at the patch.

Whatever comes to my mind when looking at this for the first time will make a nice read.
What's my opinion on that?

There was a discussion about futher extentions and usage scenarios:
* a feature that returns a list of mapped objects in one step
* XMLContext should/is? being used
* Queries that depend on child elements or attributs should be possible
* pull mapper is just one API to use "fragment mapper", there will be some
extended APIs for doing those queries
* global and local elements are defined with XML Schema and code is being
generated for the XSD
* differences between XMLCassDescriptor when generated from XSD, defined by
mapping and read by reflection.

Does support for StAX for unmarshalling within the XML data binding framework
itself mean that the approach of transforming between StAX events to SAX events
has to be changed? Same question for the possibility to switch between
SAX and StAX.
After reading some tests I think it's saying that the fragmentmapper module
should be merged within the XML data binding framework. or is it the other way
round because the newest patch creates an own module? Honestly I am not sure
if that would make sense...
Should the user be able to invoke something like unmarshal(Stream,
Path expression)?
Why does the project description say StAX for un-/marshalling when
there will be
no support for marshalling?
Why is it 'necessary' to separate concerns in Castor XML?
I'm not sure whether I get the gsoc2010 project description or not...

As discussed earlier following extensions might be useful:
* extending fragmentmapper to process queries that depend on child-elements or
attributs,
* using JavaCC instead of AntLR

Those were my impressions -mostly questions- when reading about the patch.

I want to to my first proposal as soon as the above mentioned
questions are clear to me.

Thanks for spending your time and your help,
Philipp

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