135 lines
6.3 KiB
XML
Executable File
135 lines
6.3 KiB
XML
Executable File
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
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<!DOCTYPE document PUBLIC "-//APACHE//DTD Documentation V1.1//EN" "./dtd/document-v11.dtd">
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<document>
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<header>
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<title>Project History</title>
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<authors>
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<person id="AO" name="Andrew C. Oliver" email="acoliver@apache.org"/>
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</authors>
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</header>
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<body>
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<section title="Brief Project History">
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<p>The POI project was dreamed up back around April 2001, when
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Andy Oliver landed a short term contract to do Java-based
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reporting to Excel. He'd done this project a few times before
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and knew right where to look for the tools he needed.
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Ironically, the API he used to use had skyrocketed from around
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$300 ($US) to around $10K ($US). He figured it would take two
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people around six months to write an Excel port so he
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recommended the client fork out the $10K.
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</p>
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<p>Around June 2001, Andy started thinking how great it would
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be to have an open source Java tool to do this and, while he
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had some spare time, he started on the project and learned
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about OLE 2 Compound Document Format. After hitting some real
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stumpers he realized he'd need help. He posted a message to
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his local Java User's Group (JUG) and asked if anyone else
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would be interested. He lucked out and the most talented Java
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programmer he'd ever met, Marc Johnson, joined the project. He
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ran rings around Andy at porting OLE 2 CDF and rewrote his
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skeletal code into a more sophisticated library. It took Marc
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a few iterations to get something they were happy with.
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</p>
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<p>While Marc worked on that, Andy ported XLS to Java, based
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on Marc's library. Several users wrote in asking to read XLS
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(not just write as had originally been planned) and one user
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had special requests for a different use for POIFS. Before
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long, the project scope had tripled. POI 1.0 was released a
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month later than planned, but with far more features. Marc
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quickly wrote the serializer framework and HSSF Serializer in
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record time and Andy banged out more documentation and worked
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on making people aware of the project
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</p>
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<p> Shortly before the release, POI was fortunate to come into
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contact with Nicola -Ken- Barrozzi who gave them samples for
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the HSSF Serializer and help uncover its unfortunate bugs
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(which were promptly fixed). More recently, Ken ported most
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of the POI project documentation to XML from Andy's crappy
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HTML docs he wrote with Star Office.
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</p>
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<p> Around the same time as the release, Glen Stampoultzis
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joined the project. Glen was ticked off at Andy's flippant attitude
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towards adding graphing to HSSF. Glen got so ticked off he decided to
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grab a hammer and do it himself. Glen has already become an integral
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part of the POI development community; his contributions to HSSF have
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already started making waves.
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</p>
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<p>Somewhere in there we decided to finally submit the project
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to <link href="http://xml.apache.org/cocoon">The Apache
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Cocoon Project</link>, only to discover the project had
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outgrown fitting nicely into just Cocoon long ago.
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Furthermore, Andy started eyeing other projects he'd like to
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see POI functionality added to. So it was decided to donate
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the Serializers and Generators to Cocoon, other POI
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integration components to other projects, and the POI APIs
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would become part of Jakarta. It was a bumpy road but it
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looks like everything turned out since you're reading this!
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</p>
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</section>
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<section title="What's next for POI">
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<p>First we'll tackle this from a project standpoint: Well, we
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made an offer to Microsoft and Actuate (tongue in cheek
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... well mostly) that we'd quit the project and retire if
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they'd simply write us each a really large check. I've yet to
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get a phone call or email so I'm assuming they're not going to
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pay us to go away.
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</p>
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<p>Next, we've got some work to do here at Jakarta to finish
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integrating POI into the community. Furthermore, we're
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still transitioning the Serializer to Cocoon.
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</p>
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<p>HSSF, during the 2.0 cycle, will undergo a few
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optimizations. We'll also be adding new features like a full
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implementation of Formulas and custom text formats. We're
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hoping to be able to generate smaller files by adding
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write-support for RK, MulRK and MulBlank records. I'm also
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going to work on a Cocoon 2 Generator. Currently, reading is
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not very efficient in HSSF. This is mainly because in order to
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write or modify, one needs to be able to update upstream
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pointers to downstream data. To do this you have to have
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everything between in memory. A Generator would allow SAX
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events to be processed instead. (This will be based on the low
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level structures). One of the great things about this is that,
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you'll not only have a more efficient way to read the file,
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you'll have a great way to use spreadsheets as XML data
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sources.
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</p>
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<p>The HSSF Serializer, will further separate into a general
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framework for creating serializers for other formats and the
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HSSF Serializer specific implementation. (This is largely
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already true). We'll also be adding support for features
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already supported by HSSF (styles, fonts, text formats). We're
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hoping to add support for formulas during this cycle.
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</p>
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<p>We're beginning to expand our scope yet again. If we could
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do all of this for XLS files, what about Doc files or PPT
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files? We're thinking that our next component (HDF - Horrible
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Document Format) should follow the same pattern. We're hoping
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that new blood will join the team and allow us to tackle this
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even faster (in part because POIFS is already finished). But
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maybe what we need most is you! </p>
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</section>
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</body>
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<footer>
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<legal>
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Copyright (c) @year@ The Apache Software Foundation All rights reserved.
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$Revision$ $Date$
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</legal>
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</footer>
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</document>
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