JBoss Launches Nukes 1.0
[ Nathalie Fleury ] [Permalink]
From SMD to WMDs....
On the occasion of the Nukes on JBoss 1.0 release, project lead Julien Viet answers some questions about his work.
What is Nukes?
Nukes is an open source project funded by JBoss, Inc. and released under the GPL license. It aims to provide an easy-to-use, powerful and robust content management system. If you think about it, Nukes is more general and provides an infrastructure to enable collaboration among applications. In one sense it extends the JBoss microkernel for the web applications environment.
Why did you decide to create Nukes?
To fill an empty gap. We initially tried PHP PostNuke for the website, but the performance was really bad and it did not scale at all. So we decided to port PostNuke to the Java platform, leveraging Enterprise Java Beans and the JBoss microkernel.
Is Nukes a direct port of PostNuke or a rewrite?
First we thought about doing a straight port of PostNuke with direct mapping between PHP and JSP pages, but after a deep study of the the core of PostNuke, we decided to rewrite it. Today Nukes is a modules-based application; your server-side application is a composite choice of modules. If you decide you want it to be a CMS, you take the CMS-related modules and there you have your CMS.
What templating systems can you use for Nukes modules?
When we ported the PHPBB forums, we ported the templating engine it uses to keep compatibility with all the themes of that forum. So we decided to use it for Nukes. The template syntax is pretty easy and it allows the page to be previewed directly in a browser . At runtime, when a template is loaded, it is compiled in memory in a Java class with the Javassist library to give performance boost (5x faster than the interpreted version).
What features do you feel are most impressive in Nukes?
The forum module is really the strongest proof of what Nukes can provide, besides that, the modular architecture is the thing I prefer. Nukes performance is really good thanks to EJBs.
Why did you use JMX as the core technology behind Nukes?
For the same reasons that JBoss is using them. JMX enforce a clean separation between all of your components and bring hot deploy. That means you can add components to Nukes at runtime without having to reconfigure anything in your server.
How would I create a basic Nukes module?
Create a class that inherits the ModuleSupport class and provide a few lines of XML. There is a template module that you can use to avoid starting from scratch.
Describe how security works in Nukes. How would I secure that Nukes module?
Security is based on the original PostNuke security scheme, except that it has been simplified. It took me one evening to understand the concepts behind the original. I thought that it was possible to simplify it while keeping the good features.
Are there any sites besides JBoss.com using Nukes? Which ones?
JBoss.com is using Nukes. As for other sites, I have no concrete URL to give you, but I read on the forums that people are using it.
What other features do you plan to see in 2.0?
We want to port other successful, powerful applications from the php world to the Nukes platform. Also, we want to enforce the interaction between Nukes and the user. Today, the forum is able to send notification to the user on events. In the future we want to go beyond that, enabling the user, for instance, to post in the forum simply by answering the notification mail.
Where can I find other information, such as how to install and configure Nukes?
On the website we have dedicated sections with a forum where we discuss Nukes topics and a wiki that allows people to participate in the project documentation.
What other open source projects have you contributed to?
JBoss, the application server; Nukes is my first real experience as project leader.
How impressed were the girls at the Cheetah when you told them that you were, indeed, the creator of Nukes?
They seemed really impressed and offered me lap dances for free. Of course, as a gentleman, I had to refuse. Really, my coder status is what makes me so attractive.
Posted on Thu, 4 Mar 2004 22:06 by ( day(s) old) Trackbacks [0]
