Re: [ovirt-devel] Custom Properties code duplication

Hi Lior, please find my comments inline. ----- Original Message ----- +1 Lior mentioned above the possibility of using String methods, I assume by this he means java.lang.String.matches(String) and similar methods. During GWT compilation, JRE standard String implementation is replaced by emulated (GWT-friendly) String implementation, which implements methods like matches(String) using JavaScript RegExp object. You can find this emulated implementation here: gwt-user-{version}-sources.jar/com/google/gwt/emul/java/lang/String.java Another alternative is to use GWT's built-in regex support through com.google.gwt.regexp.shared.RegExp class. GWT's RegExp class has two implementations, default one using JRE Pattern/Matcher, emulated one using JavaScript RegExp object. The advantage is (mostly) consistent regex support on both client and server, the disadvantage is server's dependency on GWT JAR. (I don't think we want this.) For simple regex matches, I'd suggest to simply go with String approach. For complex regex matches, we can use JRE Pattern/Matcher on server, and emulate given implementation using GWT RegExp on client. Note that there are (slight) differences between JRE's Pattern/Matcher and JavaScript's RegExp object syntax/behavior. Check GWT RegExp class Javadoc to see details (for simple cases, it's not a big deal, though). +1 I see that KeyValueModel uses RegexValidation class that delegates to compat's Regex class. Just like above, default Regex class utilizes JRE Pattern/Matcher but client uses emuluated implementation: gwt-extension/src/main/java/org/ovirt/engine/ui/uioverrides/org/ovirt/engine/core/compat/Regex.java and this emulated implementation uses GWT RegExp class. +1 +1 :) I think there's a misunderstanding regarding our move to REST API. The plan is to have JavaScript SDK for working with REST API (so that any JavaScript client can work with Engine, be it web application in browser, server application on node.js etc.), and for our GWT-based UI, generate GWT/Java overlay code that delegates (via JSNI) to JavaScript. This is similar approach to projects like SmartGWT which are simply overlays (wrappers) to native JavaScript library (like SmartClient). So the frontend code will still be GWT/Java, it will just consume JavaScript SDK via the above mentioned overlay code for seamless SDK user experience in GWT/Java context. We may think of implementing parts of UI in JavaScript, though. For example, utilizing UI plugins to implement different UI parts as plugins, possibly by using JavaScript directly (which could use JavaScript SDK). However, this is something different and requires deeper thought. I think this refactoring will be beneficial also in long term :)