The value of a good editor!

Last night we checked in the first lines of code for the project on our project site on sourceforge! The code is primarily the ID-WSF EndpointReference modeled with XML Tooling. It requires three projects from OpenSAML, java-xmltooling, java-opensaml2, and java-openws. The great thing is that the saml2 assertion and the soap envelope came for free from the OpenSAML libs.

My spouse pointed out the text on the back of the boat pictured to the left. It was too good not to send your way. Imagine, ruining a perfectly good boat!

The meeting was held on Wednesday 23-May-07 in a very nice conference facility in the same Georgetown University building that houses Chad’s office. We got started at 10:00AM.

We covered a lot of ground. Topics included OpenID bootstrap, OpenSAML XML Tooling, Conor Cahill’s ID-WSF client, and code generation. It was maintained that the SAML bootstrap is top and first priority, but that the requirements for OpenID bootstrapping would be very much the same as far as the ID-WSF Client is concerned.

XML TOOLING NOTE

OpenSAML’s XML Tooling creates a complete object graph based on the element structure of the XML. Unmarshalling and Marshalling are used to go from DOM based XML to Java Objects and back. The design technique that is used by OpenSAML is to break down every single element into a set of classes/objects that handle the various details of each. This can get extremely detailed. Take this XML:

<house>
  <floors>
    <floor name=”basement”>
      <room squarefeet=”40″ doors=”" windows=”" type=”bathroom” />
      <room squarefeet=”120″ doors=”" windows=”" type=”closet” />
    </floor>
    <floor name=”first floor”>
      <room squarefeet=”40″ doors=”" windows=”" type=”bathroom” />
      <room squarefeet=”120″ doors=”" windows=”" type=”kitchen” />
    </floor>
  </floors>
</house>

The code above would be supported by 5 classes for each of the following elements: house, floors, floor, and room. For example, you might take “House” and create:

HouseXMLObject.java (The object created for the element “house”)
HouseXMLObjectBuilder.java (builds the XMLObject)
HouseXMLObjectValidator.java (any validation done here)
HouseXMLObjectUnmarshaller.java (DOM element “house” to java object)
HouseXMLObjectMarshaller.java (facilitates java object to DOM element)

Each of these is registered in a config document which will identify the role that each class plays to the underlying xml tooling engine. One concern the development group had was that this level of detail might not be great for performance. Chad agreed that we might look into not building classes for some subelements.

The full notes are posted here on the wiki:
May 23rd Washington Face to Face Notes

Riggs National Bank, Georgetown
by techrose

As anyone on the developer list already knows we’re planning a face to face meeting in Georgetown this Wednesday the 23rd. We’ll be meeting at 10am and ending around 4pm. I will post an update to the list soon with any more info that I have.

Thanks to Chad we have an excellent meeting room:

Room 2005 (Second floor in Suite 2000), 3300 Whitehaven St., NW, Washington, DC 20007

Chad says: “If you’re taking a cab from somewhere be sure to mention the Northwest part of the 3300 Whitehaven St. or you’ll end up on the other side of the navy observatory. If you’re coming in via train or plane you might consider taking the metro to Dupont and taking a cab from there (it’s cheaper).”

Lunch will be catered, coffee and snacks will be available all day.

Contact me with any questions: asa dot openliberty (at) zenn dot net

A Fine Carpet, by true2source

 
I’m pleased to announce that the first draft of the architecture document that we will be using for the development of the ClientLib is available!

We hope to get lots of comments which you can send to ( asa dot openliberty at zenn dot net ) or can send via our discussion list, please subscribe.

It is interesting to note that the architecture document has been drafted entirely inside of an open wiki. Anyone can contribute and the process has been entirely visible during writing.

The french equivalent to McDonalds
by Adam Mulligan

Just a quick note. Tomorrow we’ll be discussing some basic objects and looking at some pretty pictures together. This is a perfect call for liberty experts to set our thinking straight.

If you need the call in information, send me an email:

Pattern Perspective Playground Style,
by phillinewshound

Derrick Harcey has offered to supply the project with hosting space on his servers which are sitting idle at the moment. This is an awesome offer and we’ll be taking full advantage, hosting several Liberty implementations!

Part of the intention of this project is to create a testing ground for developers who will eventually use the ID-WSF 2.0 WSC Library. The implementations listed here are only for openLiberty developers at the start. It remains to be seen which and what will be offered in the future.

At first we will install:

• HP Select Federation (HP)
• Liberty Open Source Toolkit (Conor Cahill, OSS)
• Open SSO, Open Federation (Sun, OSS)
• Sun Java System Access Manager (Sun)
• Sun Java System Federation Manager (Sun)

Why this post? Well, do you have an ID-WSF 2 implementation that you’d like to be part of our test harness group? If so, please contact me using asa dot openliberty at zenn dot net with info. I’d like to understand your requirements and help to get you rolling.

Remember, Thursday developer call is coming up, March 8th at 8am PST. I’ll post the call-in number and code to the wsf-dev list, so be sure to sign on.

Life Hard Decisions!, by Antonio.J.F.

Well, we’ve been going strong now for a few weeks. The interest from the community seems very good and our phone calls are getting more colorful - feel free to join us every Thursday morning at 8am Pacific - I send out a notice to the wsf-dev list with the call in info each week.

So what have we decided so far?

* WEB HOSTED WSC - The initial use case that we will be using for development is the Web Hosted WSC. We’ll be focusing on 1. a WSC that uses a Discovery Service and 2. a WSC with preset EPRs using SSOS. The ClientLib will be a full implementation of the ID-WSF WSC, so any use case you can think of will be applicable. If you have one in particular that you’d like to make sure gets implemented soon - join us!

* DOM - We’ll be using DOM - likely xerces and xalan

* OpenSAML XML Tooling - We’re proud to be starting this process by using the hard work done for the OpenSAML project. They have already begun work to make it easier for us to use their code, and we expect their Java SOAP implementation to be ready soon.

* J2SE 1.5 - we’re not saying it won’t run fine on older versions, but we’ve decided to set the expectations of the Java baseline to 1.5.

* Eclipse / SVN - although you can feel free to use vi and javac, we’re going to be checking in our code with svn and the developers who’ve signed on will be using eclipse for the most part.

More to come! We’re just getting started, so keep on listening!