Developing the NSDL User Portal

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Developing the NSDL User Portal
Dean Krafft, Cornell Universitydean_at_cs.cornell.ed
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Developing a User PortalAn NSDL Case Study

• Quick Overview of Public SourceForge
• The NSDL Communications Portal
• uPortal and the NSDL.org portal project
• Environment Java, XSLT, and Tomcat
• Coding Tools Eclipse, XMLSpy, Ant, JUnit
• Process Tools CVS, Tasks, Trackers, and Wikis
• Experiences

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Public SourceForge

• Supports Open Source projects at
  http//sourceforge.net
• Originally OS tools (CVS, GNU Mailman, Chora)
  with PHP glue.
• Provides Projects, User registration, File
  Releases, Tasks, Trackers (Bugs, Features,
  Patches), Docs, News, Mail Lists, CVS
  Repositories, Web space
• versus Enterprise All code is open to view and
  must be open source licensed

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NSDL Communications Portal

• Enterprise SourceForge customized
• Multiple workspaces supporting collaboration and
  code development
• Local additions Wikis for collaboration,
  controlled read access to CVS repositories
• General use of web space, mailing lists,
  trackers, document mgr, CVS

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Portals and User Interface workspace

• Wiki documentation of system requirements
  collaborative updating
• Task lists short term to-do for development
  process
• Trackers Bugs and modification requests
• CVS Primary store for code collaborative
  revision control system

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Portal Technology for NSDL.org

• uPortal (http//http//mis105.mis.udel.edu/ja-sig/
  uportal/)
• Open source from the JA-SIG consortium
• Java and XSLT customizable framework
• Channel Architecture (portlets)
• Uses Apache Tomcat as Servlet engine
• NSDL.org Primary user interface to NSDL.
  Supports news, help, search, browse, exhibits

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Java/XSLT Web development

• Java code takes input, interacts with DB, and
  creates small XML document representing unique
  content in output
• XSL Transform renders the XML into XHTML
  targeted for specific browser
• Same XML can drive many XSLTs
• Separates business logic in Java from display
  specifics in XSL transforms

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Java/XSLT pluses and minuses

• Enforces separation of concerns
• Enables using different levels of developer for
  different aspects of project
• Simplifies retargeting portal to different
  browser, device, or lookfeel
• Use of XML enables automated processing and
  testing
• Downside Its slower

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Multiplatform Environment

• Develop on Windows, deploy on Linux
• Apache, Tomcat, Ant, Java, XSLT, uPortal all
  run on both
• Identical Ant build.xml files (and everything
  else) on both platforms
• Only a few path names changed (build.properties)

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Coding Tools Eclipse

• Open source Java IDE IBM originally, now
  http//www.eclipse.org
• Provides real-time error flagging
• Excellent CVS integration and synch.
• Direct support for JUnit tests
• Good support for Ant build files (2.1 has better)

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Coding Tools Ant

• XML-based Java automated build system (written in
  Java)
• Supports multiple targets compile, deploy, db,
  test (think Make for Java)
• Supports direct CVS interaction and fully
  automated testing with JUnit
• Other plug-ins available http//ant.apache.org

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Coding Tools JUnit/HTTPUnit

• eXtreme Programming (XP) test first, last, and
  always
• JUnit Unit testing for Java classes
• Builds a suite of tests, piece by piece
• XSLT test Run transform against known input,
  then validate output against schema
• HTTPUnit HTTP-level request/response testing for
  running portal.

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Coding Tools XMLSpy

• XSLT is a non-procedural stylesheet language
  for transforming the structure of XML documents
• XMLSpy supports development and test execution of
  XSL Transforms
• Allows creation of XML samples and schema for
  Java output
• Supports validating output of XSL transform
  against XHTML DTD

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Process Tools

• CVS Version control, differencing, good
  cross-platform Open Source soln.
• Tasks Important for distributed project,
  optional for small, local group
• Trackers Critical for tracking bugs,
  modification requests, etc.
• Wiki Nice collaborative environment for
  discussion/requirements. There are alternatives
  (BSCW, Groove, email).

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Experiences

• Java XSLT worked extremely well as a web
  development approach separating concerns and
  skills
• Eclipse IDE is an excellent Java/Ant/JUnit/CVS
  environment
• XP paradigm of continuous build test worked
  very well builds confidence
• SourceForge tools helpful but not essential but
  we were local