[Announce] Houdah WebObjects Frameworks
[Announce] Houdah WebObjects Frameworks
- Subject: [Announce] Houdah WebObjects Frameworks
- From: Pierre Bernard <email@hidden>
- Date: Sat, 27 Oct 2007 00:32:57 +0200
I finally got around to publishing the Houdah WebObjects Frameworks
to Google Code.
The frameworks make up a new major open source project to extend
Apple's WebObjects application server. Granted the Houdah Frameworks
can't compete in size with Project WONDER. Yet I am proud of what I
achieved and believe I provide a viable alternative.
Most importantly though, you don't have to view Houdah Frameworks as
competition to existing architecture like D2W or WONDER. You may view
the Houdah Frameworks as a repository of utilities and useful code
snippet which work with all WebObjects applications. Actually some of
the code has been available for download on my personal web site for
quite some time now. The custom qualifiers (InSubqueryQualifier,
InSubSetQualifier, ...) have proven to be popular. You are bound to
find many like code nuggets in the low level frameworks:
HoudahFoundation, HoudahEOControl, HoudahEOAccess or HoudahAppServer.
Of course, there is much more to the Houdah Frameworks. Like the rule
based validation system which will, of course, work with just about
any WebObjects application. Or the rule engine, ... .
The real strength of the Houdah Frameworks is the web component
architecture which builds up to a rule based CRUD framework.
HoudahAgileComponents are meant as a modern alternative to D2W. The
framework produces perfectly clean HTML which is to be "skinned" at
the application level by CSS sheets. HoudahAgileComponents is very
flexible and allows for easy customization and extension through both
rules and code.
The architecture builds upon HoudahViewComponents which provides the
view layer. This layer provides large grain view components build
from fine grained cells. The view layer could work with any control
or persistence layer. The HoudahControlComponents implements a
control layer focused on creating CRUD applications using EOF. The
control components could be used as is: one would have to subclass an
abstract controller for each "page" of the application.
HoudahAgileComponents extends the control components by concrete
subclasses which call into a rule system. This makes Houdah
Frameworks a powerhouse for both rapid prototyping as well as
production applications. That said, Houdah Frameworks are intended
for use on in-house CRUD systems. If you were to create a public web
site, you would need to work on optimization.
All throughout Houdah Frameworks MVC principles are taken to the
extreme. Of course the EOControl layer does not depend on the
EOAccess layer, the view layer does not depend on EOF and the control
layer joins them.
BTW, I am pretty proud of the rule engine. It is based upon the same
ideas as Apple's engine and retains file format compatibility. It
has the distinct advantage of depending only on the Foundation and
EOControl layers. It may thus be used in code that's unrelated to the
WebObjects presentation layer. I also believe that the caching
algorithm is much superior to Apple's.
The bad news: What's missing is a sample application. I am still
(slowly) working on that. Documentation can always use improvement.
That's what the Google Code wiki is for. I plan to publish how-tos
and documentation as time permits. I also hope for others to chime in
on the wiki.
Pierre
- - -
Houdah Software s. à r. l.
http://www.houdah.com
HoudahGeo: One-stop photo geocoding
HoudahSpot: Powerful Spotlight frontend
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