O'Reilly Open Source Convention - August 1-5, 2005

Tutorial
Integrate: Building a Site from Open Source Gems
Erik Hatcher, Programmer, Applied Research in Patacriticism - University of Virginia

Track: Java
Date: Tuesday, August 2nd, 2005
Time: 1:30pm - 5:00pm
Location: E145-146
It's no longer a choice on "build" versus "buy." We must now "integrate." Many developers are overwhelmed by the choices available in the open source space. No single open source library has everything we need, nor do they all play well together. Developers must learn to evaluate open source projects with a keen sense on how it will integrate with the rest of the system.

This presentation focuses on the lucenebook.com site that Hatcher built to showcase Lucene "in action." The site features a search-inside-the-book capability melded with a blog system containing many intertwining features such as a dynamic table of contents with blog entries relating to each section.

Blojsom was chosen as the blog system, Tapestry for custom pages, Lucene for searching, SiteMesh for UI integration, Jetty for a web container, Log4J for logging, and Ant for building the whole thing. Putting this altogether required customizations and extensions for practically all pieces. These customizations, though, point out the extensibility each of these projects provide.