[gentoo-dev] Q's: Java 'servlet' virtual? Java IDE use flags?

[D. Tuinstra]

I'm beginning to install and evaluate various Java frameworks, IDEs,
and plugins, and would like to write ebuilds for them. Some
questions arise:

1) Should there be a virtual for servlet containers? At present
there are several containers available including tomcat, jetty, and
jboss (and that's just open source). I've only worked with tomcat,
but some of the references I've read say that each servlet
container has its own directory structure and its own way to
install servlet-based webapps. When writing an ebuild for a webapp
it would be nice to know, in a standard way, whether a container is
available and if so, which. 

    It would be even nicer if there was an eclass or portage
function for webapp install that would DTRT with whatever container
was installed, or if there were functions such as dowar_jetty(),
dowar_tomcat3(), dowar_tomcat4(), etc. Or should this functionality
be put in a utility, say java_servlet_config, modelled on
java_config, for ebuilds to use?)

2) Related question: what should the default container dependency be
if none is installed? Tomcat?

3) Some Java tools, such as Struts Console, can be installed
standalone or as a plugin to one or more Java IDE's. Should there
be a USE variable for each of the IDE's, that an ebuild can consult
to see which IDE's it should install itself into? If so, how would
version dependency/compatability issues be handled? 

    If such flags are used, there should also be a
"java_tool_standalone" flag to indicate installation as a
standalone tool when possible. (Apropos this matter, Oracle just
introduced a proposal into the JCP to standardise plugin
architecture across IDEs.)

Thanks,

  --Dwight Tuinstra



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