App Server Platform

I have an idea for the underpinings of a Java app-server platform. I'm referring to the underpinings & process model, not higher level stuff. It involves taking several projects out there and bringing them together:

* IBM's WBI ("Web Intermediaries") development kit. This is mainly centered around HTTP but contains a nice process model for handling requests & responses flexibly.

* A SEDA framework like MINA. Here, there is essentially a thread per stage with buffers interconnecting them. Leads to very high performance systems.

(how would MINA + WBI integrate?)

* Spring for instantiating the whole kit & kaboodle.

On top of this, you could build a servlet engine, mail server, or whatever. That would be a lot of work that I know I wouldn't want to do so I'd do a major refactoring of a good open source one like Tomcat.

Programming languages with native XML inline syntax

E4X
http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/standards/Ecma-357.htm
This is very cool. It has more benefits than allowing for simpler syntax. Imagine being able to specify that the XML block must meet a certain schema. Smart IDEs like IntelliJ could go wild with this if it could know that. Tab completion and all that. I think it could lead to XML syntax-izing other languages like say SQL or even and LDAP query. Wow! WOW! I dare say it would be a new plateau in programming.

Common Layered Specifications

Note: I'm putting a CompSci spin on this but this could apply to anything, even laws and such.

Problem Statement:
There are many specs out there. We can't fit them all in our head. Though some specs will refer to each other, more of this would be better. Specs don't seem to have much of a common format whatsoever either. Many specs seem rooted, or have a foundation, in another spec. So there is commonality.

Idea:
Using 3-6 specs already known which share a connection with each other, develop new specifications be re-using definitions where possible, but don't re-specify the same thing. Must of this could be copy-pasted from existing specs to save work. Develop a diagram to depict these relationships.