Re: Uses for D2JC (was: Gianduia and WO)
Re: Uses for D2JC (was: Gianduia and WO)
- Subject: Re: Uses for D2JC (was: Gianduia and WO)
- From: David Avendasora <email@hidden>
- Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2009 10:48:58 -0500
I think we are talking about two different uses of D2JC. I'm not
really suggesting that it should be used to create an end-user UI in
most cases. I'm saying that it is a powerful tool to aid in the
development process.
On Nov 6, 2009, at 12:42 PM, Mike Schrag wrote:
Sure, I agree yours is real and mine's a picture, but that wasn't
really my point. My point was about visual mismatch with the native
platform. If you're OK with the app looking .... like Java ... , by
all means, ship it. I find Java desktop apps to be mostly visually
repugnant (the same reason that I work on Maclipse, but at least SWT
has a fighting chance), and I don't believe you can actually make it
un-gross without a huge amount of work. It's a question of what
matters to you, though.
I guess my point is that when D2JC is used as a development tool, I
wouldn't put _any_ work into making it look better. Neither would I
for an CRUD-focused admin app. Sure, a perfectly native UI would be
even better, but the amount of work it would take to make either a
Cocoa or a Web UI to simply aid in development or do CRUD work is more
than I think it's worth in these situations.
That said, pretty much everything in the main chunk of your email
isn't really D2JC, it's just D2*. I'm sold already on the RAD value
of D2* technologies, I'm just not at all convinced that D2JC is the
right D2 to choose in most cases. If time-to-market is the primary
concern, it seems to me that you have dramatically faster styling
and design capabilities with D2W.
I don't style D2JC at all. I use what comes out of the box. How can
D2W (or anything) be faster than that? Sure you can use D2W out-of-the-
box too, but if you think D2JC looks terrible, then the default look
of D2W must make your head explode. I don't use D2JC to design the end-
user UI. I'm using it to help design the Model and the business logic
and populate the DB through EOF instead of SQL. I can get immediate
feedback and see the impacts of these changes without having to write
any UI code at all.
You can hire an designer off the street to do CSS/HTML work for you,
whereas you'd dump a pile of hours into custom Swing controls.
Couldn't you hire a Swing guy to do swing controls just like you hire
a CSS/HTML guy? In addition to that, what about the time to write
rules by hand? With D2W there is no functional Assistant. Now, maybe
some people find the rule system easy to understand and intuitive and
find writing rules by hand easy, but I certainly don't and I've been
doing D2JC for years. For me the Assistant is fundamental to the Model
and Business-Logic validating process I'm talking about. Besides, how
is hiring someone else to do the work a reduction in over-all work?
This is essentially the same argument I have against the IB/Cocoa
style of development. The RAD time in IB/Cocoa is just way longer
than making the equivalent UI web-based. Maybe one screen you can
layout a little quicker, but start doing multiscreen workflows, and
you're just sinking time into Cocoa work (you can really see this
when you try to RAD an iphone app -- i find it to be very expensive
to do in contrast to web RADing). The flip-side, of course, is that
it looks awesome. It's the trade-off again.
So I guess the question is really "given a project spec, what
feature in the project would cause on to choose D2JC over D2W."
I guess I'm not talking about a shipping a D2JC application, and
certainly not an app with multi-screen workflows. While I think in
some situations you _could_ ship a D2JC app to end users for simple
CRUD-type work, I agree with you that if you want/need any control
over the UI or multi-window workflows, then D2JC is not a good tool
for that.
What I am really talking about here, using D2JC for prototyping and
model-to-business context validation, is the equivalent of using
Entity Modeler for creating/modifying EOModels instead of using
Property List Editor. For the initial prototyping process, validating
that the model matches the business context, initial CRUD work, etc.
With D2JC you get a very attractive and usable interface with zero
work, where D2W takes much more effort to use it in this way.
I also use D2JC extensively in reverse-engineering existing DBs into
EOF. I can create a fully functional UI instantly from a reverse-
engineered model that is hugely useful in allowing me to see the DB
from EOF's perspective and figure out how to setup relationships and
integrations. I've done this for portions of both Microsoft Dynamics
and Jive for integration with WebObjects applications.
Dave
ms
On Nov 6, 2009, at 11:48 AM, David Avendasora wrote:
On Nov 6, 2009, at 9:54 AM, Mike Schrag wrote:
couple mins of Interface Builder mockup (mac-up?):
<PastedGraphic-2.png><PastedGraphic-3.png>
Nice looking and it shows how powerful Interface Builder can be in
making UIs, but mine isn't just a mock-up it's a fully functional
application - warts and all. It really talks to the server, sync
ECs, validates, etc. etc. Again, I dropped an EOModel into my
template project and launched it. Then used the EOAssistant to
configure which attributes showed, what type of widget they used
(PopUp, text field, explorer, etc) and where they appeared on the
screen. That's it. No code. There's not a single Java Class besides
Application, DirectAction, Session and two components: Main and
JavaClient, none of which are modified beyond the stock template.
So D2JC is certainly _passable_, but it's far from being a proper
mac app (those default old style boxes are the dead giveaway for
java apps, though there's a Swing client property to switch box
styles, IIRC). Now, certainly, if you spent enough time, you could
tweak things and make it a lot closer, but it's always going to be
off.
Yes, and so will any web app, only more so. Now, your point about
the uncanny valley is very true. D2JC comes almost too close to the
look of a native app. If it were further off like a web app
people's expectations would be lowered and no one would complain.
But being uncanny hardly seems a valid reason to throw away
something that saves literally _hundreds_ of hours of development
time, especially for internal, CRUD-type admin applications.
But I don't think that using D2JC to create shipping CRUD-type
applications is really its most appropriate or useful application.
To me, it's all about lowering project risk by getting stake-
holders involved as soon as possible in the development process and
as a prototyping and model-validating tool.
D2JC is an incredibly powerful tool when used as a means to an end.
WIth D2JC you can have a _fully functional_ application with just
an EOModel. This allows you, as a developer, to get a true feel for
how well your model represents the business context without having
to write any code. You can immediately start creating records in
the database, setting relationships, deleting objects, orphaning
them, etc. through EOF which will verify that the relationships are
properly setup including that your deletion rules and ownership
settings work as you expect. Again, you can do all this without
writing any code! You don't have to ever show it to an end-user if
you don't want to.
Change your model? No problem. Rebuild (copy the revised EOModel to
the build directory) and relaunch your app and your changes are
immediately reflected in the UI. Since you haven't written any
code, you don't have to refactor! What's better than Eclipse's
refactoring tools? Not needing to refactor at all. D2JC greatly
speeds the process of modeling and validating that the model
reflects reality.
On top of all this, since you have a fully functional application,
with all CRUD functions, revert functionality, validation, etc, it
_can_ transition into the initial data-entry, data-cleanup
application to populate/scrub the database and even be used by non-
developers (business users). How many times have you created
spreadsheets for users to do data entry into so you can then import
them into the DB? With D2JC what you give them can be a real
application that writes directly to the DB.
Keep in mind that you can do all of this - requirements to working
prototype - in ONE DAY with no code. It is easy to start with some
basic requirements, create a model, then an app, and take it to the
stake-holders to show how various pieces fit together and get even
better feedback on workflows because you are giving them something
they can see and understand not an abstract diagram. You can then
make revisions and return with a revised, working application
_minutes_ later. Yes, I said minutes!
Once you've validated that the Model accurately reflects reality by
having actually putting it to use, you can now start the labor-
intensive process of creating the finely tuned UI that looks and
works exactly how you want it to. Because you have already done a
substantial amount of model and business context validation there
will be far less risk of having to tear it all apart due to having
missed something fundamental in the model.
I'd like to see any other technology do that, WO-based or not.
And we're just talking chrome, not behavior of the app, which is
often even more off.
D2JC certainly has some UI clumsiness to it, especially when
working with many-to-many relationships and dealing with Inheritance.
Of course you have to do all these tweaks for each platform, too
-- though you're a fair bit closer than my CocoaClient app is
running on Windows :)
I think what it comes down to is that I would not suggest using
D2JC in a situation where you have to have complete control over
the UI or have even reasonably complicated work-flows. On top of
that, I don't think it would be worth the effort to tweak the UI
for one platform, let alone multiple ones. The fact that it runs
"passibly" on all Java platforms without writing any UI code at
all, to me is simply amazing and incredibly powerful.
Whew, that's more than I intended to write. :-)
Dave
ms
On Nov 6, 2009, at 8:50 AM, David Avendasora wrote:
On Nov 6, 2009, at 8:17 AM, Mike Schrag wrote:
So if we're stirring the pot here ... For me, it's not being
cool in the browser, it's about Java apps looking terrible. You
can immediately tell when you're using a Java app ... Things are
just never quite right, but they try to sell themselves as being
native. It's an uncanny valley situation. Eclipse/SWT are using
native controls for lots of things and they get it wrong, too.
Swing just doesn't have a chance. Go try IDEA -- it looks
TERRIBLE. Look at their preference panels. I tweeted when IDEA
went free that I can see how to make Eclipse right, but I'd
never be able to make IDEA right.
I understand the uncanny valley. In most cases you are absolutely
right. Here's a screen grab from my current D2JC project, I think
it looks pretty good, although it doesn't look like a modern OS X
app (iTunes, etc):
<PastedGraphic-3.png>
For browser apps, it's obvious they're not native apps, and the
bar is set low in the browser at this point, so you can make a
slick looking app, and it doesn't have to be perfectly native,
and people are still OK with it. I would be far more interested
in CocoaClient where you actually have a chance of pulling off a
nice end-user deliverable.
I agree. For me a WO Cocoa Client is the Holy Grail of Client-
Server. I want it. Badly.
That said, I recognize that there are plenty of apps where
"looking slick" doesn't really matter -- that you just need to
get some business app out there. But what does Java bring to the
table that you're not getting in the browser?
With plain WebObjects JavaClient, you get
1) Real Java on the client. No messing around learning JavaScript
(or waiting for the "next great JS framework") to implement UI
logic.
2) EOF on the Client with
- automatic syncing of Client and Server EditingContexts (works
very similar to Child ECs)
- batching
- faulting
- validation
Why not just use D2W? Drag and drop is about the only thing, and
that will be in the good browsers pretty soon.
For me, it's not about the features you get in the client,
although there's some cool stuff that way too. It's the dead-
simple development side that makes it so awesome to me. With
WebObjects D2JC you don't have to write _any_ code at all. No
HTML. No CSS. No JavaScript. Not even rules! You hear that D2W
guys? The D2JC EOAssistant works great and it will write most of
the rules you need! Here's a screen capture of it (it's also a
Java Client app that communicates with WOLips to update the
user.d2wmodel file):
<PastedGraphic-6.tiff>
Anyway, I didn't mean to hijack this thread with Java Client, but
hey Anjo brought it up! :-P
Dave
I do, however, think D2JC is a _neat_ technology, in that it's
amazingly clever what it's doing under the covers, I just am not
sold on the end result.
ms
On Nov 6, 2009, at 7:41 AM, David Avendasora wrote:
Hey! Did I hear "JavaClient"?! :-D
Yeah, it will be cool if someday we get the tools to do
something client-server like JavaClient.
Oh wait! We already _have_ WebObjects-based JavaClient, and
Direct-To-JavaClient and it works today and has for _years_.
Sure, it's not as "cool" as a browser-based solution, in the
same way WO isn't as "cool" as Ruby.
**ducks, runs for cover and scrambles to get the D2JC project
template updated**
Dave
On Nov 6, 2009, at 7:32 AM, Anjo Krank wrote:
Not really sure... basically you'd need something totally new,
as this would be more like JavaClient and not like a web app.
But all this is *moot* until we don't have it.
Cheers, Anjo
Am 06.11.2009 um 13:05 schrieb Mike Schrag:
Yeah .. I suspect there could be a GianduiaLook, and that
would make a lot of sesnse.
ms
I think we've seen with the SproutCore stuff that it's not.
Apart from *maybe* a JS D2W.
Cheers, Anjo
Am 06.11.2009 um 02:54 schrieb Mike Schrag:
rom my perspective, I don't know that it's worth building a
server stack on top of it as much as I think it would be
nice to leverage the development tools we already have to
make it easier to write the Javascript.
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David Avendasora
Senior Software Engineer
K12, Inc.
*****
WebObjects Documentation Wiki : http://wiki.objectstyle.org/confluence/display/WO/
*****
WebObjects API: http://developer.apple.com/legacy/mac/library/documentation/MacOSXServer/Reference/WO54_Reference/index.html
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David Avendasora
Senior Software Engineer
K12, Inc.
*****
WebObjects Documentation Wiki : http://wiki.objectstyle.org/confluence/display/WO/
*****
WebObjects API: http://developer.apple.com/legacy/mac/library/documentation/MacOSXServer/Reference/WO54_Reference/index.html
*****
David Avendasora
Senior Software Engineer
K12, Inc.
*****
WebObjects Documentation Wiki : http://wiki.objectstyle.org/confluence/display/WO/
*****
WebObjects API: http://developer.apple.com/legacy/mac/library/documentation/MacOSXServer/Reference/WO54_Reference/index.html
*****
David Avendasora
Senior Software Engineer
K12, Inc.
*****
WebObjects Documentation Wiki : http://wiki.objectstyle.org/confluence/display/WO/
*****
WebObjects API: http://developer.apple.com/legacy/mac/library/documentation/MacOSXServer/Reference/WO54_Reference/index.html
*****
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