PratikPatel

I have been working to apply Agile Methods for large-scale projects that perhaps do not fit nicely into the "XP way." I have found that for large projects there _is_ a need for cohesive and more-than-barebones process and documentation, as the barriers for communication are steep: location & time zone differences, language, and culture. Believe it or not, Agile Methods can work wonders even in these situations, if you take care to use the right amount of rigour combined with Agile practices.

I am currently working on a book on the Struts framework. This has been a great experience (unlike my last two books)... I've recently discovered how to unit test Struts applications using either Cactus or Mock objects. As a bonus, the guy who developed the StrutsTestCase library is writing a chapter for my book! StrutsTestCase takes the pressure (reliance?) off of the functional tests that I've been writing using Canoo WebTest?.

Also, as part of the development of my Struts book, I am working on two new open-source project: jwebforum and AppFusion?:

• jwebforum - a Java/Struts based Forum web application. Nothing really earth shattering here, this is just the sample app for the Struts book. (jwebforum.sourceforge.net, thought nothing worthwhile in the CVS yet)

• More interesting and exciting, is the base of the new version of jwebforum, which I have called AppFusion?. I have shamelessly borrowed from Matt Raible's appfuse package (www.raibledesigns.com) and any other open-source project that I believe is the way forward into the AppFusion? 'platform.' The idea is that AppFusion? can help you rapidly build web applications using best-of-breed tools and best practices. I'm currently looking for someone to help with the unit and functional tests :)

Here's how it works: - Create a new project using "ant newproject -Dprojectname=myProjectName" - Write your model using POJO's, stick in the necessary XDoclet tags, and "ant deploy" - point your web browser to http://localhost:8080/

What you get: - JSP forms based on the model objects' properties (one per model object) - Struts ActionForms? (with validation based on the XDoclet tags) - Struts Actions to add/remove/update/delete the model objects - Pluggable data persistence framework, choose from Castor, Hibernate, roll-your-own DAO, and maybe even EJBs

I have a fair bit of this working already, but will be picking this back up in a few weeks and am hoping to get some help to do a proper release.

Contact: prpatel (AT) smartframeworks.com Status: Will be available August 1.