StrutsResumeArchitecture

Here are a few concepts that I need some user feedback on.

• Should skills and skill_groups be related to a single resume, or should they be separate? By separate, I mean to say that there are join-table (i.e. resume_skill_group and group_skills) that allow you to choose from a list of skills/groups to assign to your resume. The current architecture has a resume_id in the skill_group table and a group_id in the skill table. The potential problem with this is that a user has to manually enter their skill groups and skills and they can't pick from a pool. An example of a skill group is "Markup Languages" as demonstrated in Russ's Resume. One idea I had is to have a bunch of skills/groups with null resume_id/group_id's and these would be the pool. When users want to assign them to their resume, new records would be inserted and then the user could customize any part of the group or skill.

• I have a simple resume.vm template that is in WEB-INF/classes. Should I do something like Roller where there is a list of templates to choose from and the current template is stored in the database? One thing that might work (since resumes are simple) is to have an online repository of .vm files and you can "import" a new one by entering a URL and clicking "import". Would a "preview" feature be necessary (like the one Roller has)?

• Is it possible to produce a PDF or RTF from a Velocity template? If so, how? If PDF is not possible with Velocity, should I just use XSL:FO?

See my blog entry on this topic.