Re: Is WebObjects Dead?
Re: Is WebObjects Dead?
- Subject: Re: Is WebObjects Dead?
- From: Daniel Mejia <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 17:47:19 -0600
Dave,
I agree with you, but I have some comments.
The learning curve is not easy, but if you already have the skill I bet
that you are more productive with WO than with any other tool or
combination of tools.
Regarding integration issues, version 5.2 have a lot of good stuff to
integrate JSP and servlets with WO, you can use WO components, you can
call WO classes from JSPs, you can invoke direct actions, etc.
Also, you can use any IDE that you want to develop applications with
WO, some people are using eclipse to develop WO applications, that as I
understand it is the most accepted IDE at this time.
Anyway, in the company where I'm working we are investing time and
money to research new tools and options to develop our projects.
Saludos,
Daniel.
On Feb 25, 2004, at 4:45 PM, Dave Varon wrote:
To the contrary:
We abandoned WO _because_ of the learning curve and integration issues.
We have moved webapp development to hibernate/struts/tiles with many
homegrown components.
There is ongoing debate about why tech mgrs make decisions. Our
perspective on that debate _is_ relevant. That being said, as a small
devshop, coding primarily for internal clients, we rely on our
ambition and critical thinking skills to solve business problems
which many larger firms justifiably solve with policy and greenbacks.
We determined it would be more cost effective to go full-OSS because
we benefit in the long term by investing in learning how to solve
problems at the source-code level. Investing time to learn how API
internals are constructed pays off in, potentially, at least three
ways: it gives us the option to customize code when it won't do what
we want; it presents an opportunity to acquire transferable skills; it
is cheaper.
For example, if I can't get code to work--to perform a specific
task--it is because either a) I don't know how to do it, or b) because
it can't be done. The cost of determining a or b, and in proceeding
from a or b in WO exceeds that of our current selection of OSS tools
and leaves us with only a WO solution the problem. Learning _why_
something doesn't work is significantly more valuable to us than
simply learning how to get it working.
The reasons for our decisions include some that are specific to our
environment, however some of the more general rationale for these
decisions include: the availability and variety of documentation for
Struts/J2EE/OSS vs WO (WO has relatively little), the semantics of the
WO-API (which have HUGE learning curve implications), the cost, market
for, and likelihood of requiring professional support (with WO you pay
a lot, or wait a lot, or cry a lot), and the individual benefit of
choosing one's own coding toolset (three different IDE's/Editors pose
no problems in our non-WO projects.)
anyway, I have tremendous respect for WO, it is exquisite. It
unfortunately has proven to be more of a problem than a solution.
On Feb 25, 2004, at 12:15, Daniel Mejia wrote:
In the technological road I think that is very hard to find a
combination of tools that could make the same job as easy as WO. You
can try with many combination of tools, but the cost of
configuration, learning curve, integration with other tools, tool and
deploy price, etc. probably is bigger than the benefits that you
already have with WO.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Dave Varon
Software Development Director
Information Technology & Telecommunications
WGBH Educational Foundation
<email@hidden> <617.300.3850>
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