Re: Freemarker schedule related question

Thank you for the exhausting reply. I hadn't anticipated, that there are so
many issues connected with that release (as it always is like that with
bigger projects). Now I have much cleaner view on the matter.

You mentioned ugly .null variable - is it some custom extension or what is
that. I searched through global variables documentation and there is nothing
about it (http://freemarker.sourceforge.net/docs/ref_specvar.html). I do
null check in two ways:

<#if variable??/>

or when I need an assign:

<#assign newVar=obj.apiCall()!'<Undefined>'/>
<#if newVar != 'Undefined'> ...

But the second way is so ugly that I very much look forward to the null
keyword. Is there is any better way of handling nulls?

The second thing I wanted to ask. I must admin, that I've hooked into an
unpublic builtin API - to add my new builtins. The built-in paradigm is so
handy, that I couldn't resist not to use it for adding new build-ins for our
web developers. Do you  plan to open this mechanism as a part of open Java
API? My current hook is as follows:

package freemarker.core;

/**
 * Custom Freemarker built ins extension - cannot do it better because
framework secures access
 * to built-ins not allowing external libraries directly add their own.
 *
 * @author Jan Novotný, FG Forrest a.s. (c) 2007
 * @version $Id: BuiltInExtension.java,v 1.4 2010/03/05 08:23:39 u_novoj Exp
$
 */
public class BuiltInExtension {

public static void init() {
BuiltIn.builtins.put("unescape_url", new UnescapeUrl());
BuiltIn.builtins.put("json", new ObjectToJson());
BuiltIn.builtins.put("remove_diacritics", new RemoveDiacritics());
... more ...
}

}

What's you opinion on that?

Thanks again for your previous prompt answer,
Jan

2010/3/25 Daniel Dekany <[email protected]>

> Thursday, March 25, 2010, 7:47:20 AM, Ing. Jan Novotný wrote:
>
> > Hello,
> >
> >    is there any roadmap that would state where there could be 2.4
> > stable out? I'd like to get advantage of new null handling behaviour.
> Thanks for the reply.
>
> Ugh... all right, let's see, at least some of devels will see the
> picture at least.
>
> First, I have to clarify something regarding the version numbers...
> Although you still see 2.4-pre1 on our page (again, guys, can I remove
> that thing?), if that branch will be released ever at all, that will
> be most probably 3.0. Now there is a plan to release a 2.4, but that's
> basically 2.3 changed so that it complies with the GWE (for Google Web
> Engine) (GWE doesn't comply with J2SE 1.3 or later, the target
> platform of FreeMarker 2.3), which required non-backward compatible
> changes (even if only minor ones) and hence it can't be called
> 2.3.<something> according to our version number policy.
>
> As of null-handling... Attila hinted earlier that he could back-port
> that into 2.4 (which is 2.3 GWE). And technically he could for sure...
> however, as it turns out that it can't be done without *substantially*
> breaking backward compatibility (at least as far as I see). Surely 2.4
> can be non-compatible with 2.3 according the version policy, however,
> since many will only switch to 2.4 to run their *existing*
> applications on GWE, these really should be minor ones this time. So
> null-handling can only go into, like, 2.5... UNLESS it becomes a
> Configuration-level setting in 2.4: "null_aware", false by default. If
> Attila thinks that that's not too big deal to implement, that would be
> great. (And BTW if null_aware=true, then null could be a keyword; no
> need for that ugly .null anywhere.) (Actually, this null_aware thing
> would be desirable for one another reason... When we want to introduce
> something non-BC and profound in version x.y.0, it should be already
> in the wild with version x.(y-1).z, so people can start experimenting
> with it and "migrate" long before it becomes active be default.)
>
> Now, the whens... That's horrendously unpredictable here. But I
> believe 2.4.0 (final) will be out within a few months. And if Attila
> will agree with the null_aware setting thing, you will have
> null-support that early. Or actually earlier... because in that case a
> practically stable 2.4 that already has this optional null-support
> will appear much earlier in the SVN for sure. AFAIR Attila already has
> 2.3 GWE + null-support on his computer, only null-support isn't
> optional yet, and that's a problem for 2.4. But I don't know yet what
> he will think about making that a config. option.
>
> > Regards,
> > Jan
>
> --
> Best regards,
>  Daniel Dekany
>
>
>
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-- 
--------------------------------------------------------------
Ing. Jan Novotný
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
http://blog.novoj.net
Myšlenky dne otce Fura
--------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Download Intel&#174; Parallel Studio Eval
Try the new software tools for yourself. Speed compiling, find bugs
proactively, and fine-tune applications for parallel performance.
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http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-sw-dev

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