[jboss-user] [JBoss Seam] - seam-gen: What is it good for?

[mugwump]

After playing a while with seam-gen, I'd really like to hear if somebody is actually using this for something more than generating a template from which to start. I mean, is this supposed to be something comparable to rails or grails scaffolding? Or is it just a toy to give you a prepared build and some wired components? 

For serious work, all this seems to be too fragile. Here is what happened after 2 hours of work:

action-package screwed  up: 
although both 


  | model.package=<mypackage>.model
  | action.package=<mypackage>.action
  | 

are setup in build.properties, all files get generated into the package model.package=.model with no apparent reason. 

netbeans project does not compile out-of-the-box:netbeans-project is setup with action..action and model..model as src-folders. Takes a while to realize, that these are two distinct source-folders and you have to manually set them up.

 Clean task is working mediocre: There is a task missing to clean up the exploded directory: if you happen to move a class between packages, you end up with duplicate components (and undeploy does not work when the server is running).

The database is torn down, when the server is shuts down, which is fatal, if you you go bottom-up and use your database and generate-entities for modelling, which seam-gen suggests.

Entities with relations throw a "duplicate method: createInstance"-Exception, which I did not manage to resolve.

Taken all this rather unpleasant experience together, I think we still have a long way to go to have something comparable to the simple rails script/generate scaffold - which simply works. 

I'm pretty sure, that this whole code-generation stuff can be turned into something really really powerful (with the mix of hbm2xml&freemarkertemplattes you can sure do a good thing or two...). Right now, I just wonder, what the audience for this is?! It only has basic features, so it's not suitable for real projects (what about schema-evolution, mechanisms for extending classes, top-down generation, per-project properties, using uml-models as basis etc.) - given the fact that it is terribly easy to break and terribly hard to get it running for more than the most basic tasks, it's not for the novice either - so again, the question: Where is seam-gen heading?!





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