Re: [dali-dev] Storing connection information

[Shaun Smith <shaun.smith@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Paul,

  Can you clarify #2?  What do you mean by "They would still get a 
problem prompting them to set up a connection for a JPA project, but 
wouldn't get a naming clue about what the connection should be"?  In 
Dali 1.0, how would this connection be visible to a developer when 
creating a project/adding the JPA facet or when checking source out of 
source control?

          Shaun

Paul Fullbright wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> We had some discussions in our daily dev meeting about where to store 
> various project settings.  Currently we have two such settings: JPA 
> platform and DTP connection.  Since the JPA platform is such an 
> important part of the definition of a project, similar to a facet, we 
> decided that it should be stored as part of the project's resources in 
> the .settings folder, similar to how facets are stored.  But the DTP 
> connection is a bit different.  There are three standard places that 
> information can be stored in eclipse: as a workspace-wide preference, 
> as a project-specific workspace preference, or as a project-specific 
> setting (as we decided to store the JPA platform).  We'll be storing a 
> reference (a String) to a DTP connection, which is defined and stored 
> by DTP plugins in the workspace-wide preferences.  It makes sense to 
> store DTP connections that way, since they're not really associated 
> with any project in particular, but since our reference is most 
> definitely project-specific, we ruled out the workspace-wide 
> preference route.  We are still somewhat in doubt about whether to 
> store this information as a project-specific setting or a 
> project-specific workspace preference.  The two methods are outlined 
> below.
>
> 1) Project-specific setting:  Information stored in this method are 
> shared among team members (that is, they are part of the project's 
> resources).  WTP facets and JDT-specific settings are commonly stored 
> here.  Storing our reference string here would signal to users that 
> they should set up a DTP connection by a certain name. (for example, 
> "TestPetStoreDataSource")  It would also mean that in order to change 
> the connection (such as for test-validating against a deployment data 
> source) a user would have to edit the actual DTP connection instead of 
> switching to a different DTP connection (that is, if they didn't want 
> to be out of synch with the shared project.)
>
> 2) Project-specific workspace preference:  Information stored in this 
> method is not shared among team members.  It exists for one project in 
> one workspace.  This mechanism is most commonly used for storing 
> overridden workspace preferences, such as those for java coding style 
> or WTP validators, but it is also the primary mechanism for storing 
> such things as the cvs repository for a project.  If we stored our 
> connection reference string here, it would allow users to specify 
> their own DTP connection names.  They would still get a problem 
> prompting them to set up a connection for a JPA project, but wouldn't 
> get a naming clue about what the connection should be.  However, 
> they'd be able to switch between DTP connections (or use existing 
> ones) without having to edit the information within the DTP 
> connections themselves.
>
> I think we're generally leaning in the direction of #2, but we wanted 
> to get some community feedback on this.

--
Shaun Smith
Principal Product Manager
Oracle TopLink
shaun.smith@xxxxxxxxxx