Re: Future of WebObjects?
Re: Future of WebObjects?
- Subject: Re: Future of WebObjects?
- From: Dov Rosenberg <email@hidden>
- Date: Thu, 01 Jul 2004 12:49:51 -0400
I would love to hear more positive things from Apple, but I would like to
hear clear product plans for other technologies that I have integrated into
our products including the Apache Foundation software. More than once we
have had to refactor our XML support because of radical changes that have
occurred in Xerces and Xalan.
If Apple stays focused on creating and refining the WebObjects/EOF APIs and
gives up the IDE tool development we will all be in a better position. It
would be great for Apple to incorporate the WOBuilder/EOModeler
functionality into a tool like eclipse as a set of plugins.
Some enterprising company could make some decent money providing plugins to
fill the gaps Apple left behind. They don't have to be complex or expensive
just functional. That is the Microsoft philosophy of tools. Provide a
platform, let the community loose. In our case Eclipse is the tool, groups
like WOLips provide the plugins.
The fact that Apple won an award for BEST API this year should get people to
realize - that is what makes WebObjects and EOF so great - it is an API!!
Toolwise things in the WO World have not changed dramatically since WO was
$50,000 per server in 1997. EOModeler, ProjectBuilder, and WOBuilder are the
same, the underlying files that get generated from those tools are
unchanged, but the functionality available is vastly greater!!
For any development project that costs more than $699 to complete, the cost
for a WO deployment license is insignificant, the cost savings using the WO
APIs are far greater.
On 7/1/04 12:20 PM, "Karl Gretton" <email@hidden> wrote:
> We got a very clear statement from Apple that WO is NOT going away.
> Many, many presentations are about what Apple has done with WO in the
> last couple of years and that they are committed to it long term.
>
> The message is clearly that they have had other priorities over the
> past 3 years with the whole transition to MacOS X and stabilizing the
> core and new APIs but that they are committed to integrating WO more
> closely with their tools (Xcode).
>
> They have also been very clear that if you develop using WO on a
> non-MacOS X platform then you are basically on your own and that their
> current tools are unlikely to be updated for Windows.
>
> There have been many sessions here introducing people to WO and
> presenting WO technology. There is one this afternoon that features
> using WO as the environment for developing Websites on MacOS X.
>
> So I think that we got useful information to confirm that WO is a well
> supported technology that will keep pace with the advancements on the
> Java and MacOS X platforms. We expect to see Xcode 2.0 support (which
> will eventually replace EOModeller and also add some nice object
> modelling features) and support for Java 1.5.
>
> I would have been pleased to hear an announcement that they were
> updating all the components to be XHTML compliant and providing a new
> WOBuilder. That didn't happen.
>
> Other than that, everything looks great to me.
>
> Karl
>
> On 1-Jul-04, at 8:49 AM, Lotsa Cabo wrote:
>
>> Don,
>>
>> If I may, i don't think anyone is expecting an announcement from Apple
>> regarding WebObjects. At least for me, and the people that I have
>> heard from, what I think people want are straight answers. To
>> paraphrase one of the guys from last night, if he spent $3000 to head
>> to WWDC and directly asked someone if WebObjects will be around
>> tomorrow, he should be able to get a straight answer.
>>
>> On the other hand, historically Apple has never been the type of
>> company to announce anything before it's golden. So, for anyone to
>> expect them to change just because they paid for a flight out to the
>> west coast... well... that just ain't gonna happen.
>>
>> I think anyone will begin to get a bit anxious if any person or company
>> they had a relationship with remained quiet all of the time. It's like
>> telling someone you have a juicy secret but that you're not gonna tell
>> them. Right or wrong, people will eventually come to their own
>> conclusions and start to predict what is going to happen.
>>
>> I think most of us just want some open communication and understanding.
>> Sure, sign some confidentially agreements or put other security
>> measures in place if you need, but say SOMETHING. Even, if they just
>> give a general statement to say that a certain technology is NOT going
>> away... anything!
>>
>> Again, I don't think anyone wants an announcement, per se; just a clear
>> yes or no as to whether or not they can continue to bank on certain
>> technologies.
>>
>> R/S
>> Ryan
>> _________________________
>> Tired of spam? Signup for a FREE SpamJammer.Com account and say
>> goodbye to junk email forever!
>>
>>
>>
>> On Jul 1, 2004, at 10:28 AM, Dov Rosenberg wrote:
>>
>>> There has been a lot of discussion lately about the total lack of
>>> WebObjects
>>> news from Apple at WWDC. This got me wondering a bit as to what
>>> everyone was
>>> expecting. I have been using WebObjects since 3.5 back in 1997.
>>>
>>> Since Apple migrated to full Java support in 5.x they have been able
>>> to
>>> leverage all of the technology being brought forward by the Java
>>> community.
>>> Our WO apps use JMS, XML (not the WebObjects provided APIs), XSL, RSS,
>>> PDF
>>> generation, Microsoft Excel generation, reading Word files, etc. We
>>> have
>>> never been slowed down because of lack of WebObjects implementation of
>>> a
>>> particular technology. If Apple doesn't provide it - someone else on
>>> the
>>> planet does!!
>>>
>>> So what announcements were people expecting from Apple regarding WO? A
>>> new
>>> version of Xcode - who cares I use Eclipse with great satisfaction.
>>> Some new
>>> features in the API's? If I can't find a feature or function in the
>>> Apple
>>> API, the new Java 1.4x API is very full featured and useful.
>>>
>>> The fact that WebObjects has supported Servlet deployment since 5.x
>>> has made
>>> the fact that native deployments on Linux can't be easily done totally
>>> mute.
>>> I have never been a fan of Monitor. I would much rather give my
>>> customer a
>>> WAR or JAR file and let them deploy my app on any platform they have a
>>> J2EE
>>> Servlet engine on. Then the discussion with the IT department of
>>> whether I
>>> am using WebObjects is also mute - I am a J2EE application!
>>>
>>> Bottom line - Apple is not a tool company like Borland, but they have
>>> some
>>> kick ass APIs and technologies (WebObjects, EOF, Quicktime,
>>> Rendezvous, etc)
>>> that are far ahead of the rest of the pack. Accept the fact the
>>> WOBuilder
>>> and EOModeler suck, use Dreamweaver or notepad and Eclipse/ANT/WOLips.
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Dov Rosenberg
>>> Conviveon Corporation
>>> http://www.conviveon.com
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--
Dov Rosenberg
Conviveon Corporation
370 Centerpointe Circle, suite 1178
Altamonte Springs, FL 32701
http://www.conviveon.com
email@hidden
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