Re: A "Why WebObjects" Site / Initial Thoughts Please (Modified by Bob McCormick)
Re: A "Why WebObjects" Site / Initial Thoughts Please (Modified by Bob McCormick)
- Subject: Re: A "Why WebObjects" Site / Initial Thoughts Please (Modified by Bob McCormick)
- From: Bob McCormick <email@hidden>
- Date: Sat, 3 Jul 2004 20:20:30 -0700
- Resent-date: Sat, 3 Jul 2004 20:32:28 -0700
- Resent-from: Bob McCormick <email@hidden>
- Resent-message-id: <email@hidden>
- Resent-to: (Group) WebObjects <email@hidden>
Hi Ryan,
I've been following this thread and the other long tread regarding WWDC
News very closely as I have three major up and coming projects that I
must select the technology for. I've been dragging my heels for about
2 months in order to see what fell out of WWDC regarding WO, and wasn't
surprised by the lack of more information regarding the WO technology
from Apple. Their lack of roadmapping and such severely hurts their
credibility at the Enterprise level I believe. I wish they would get
their collective minds together and maybe at least go halfway - 6
months would be better than absolutely nothing.
The biggest problem that I currently have with WO right now is one of
knowing whether WO is going to be around for the long haul. It's
professional suicide to go with technology that either hasn't been
proven enough or hasn't the following to sustain a critical mass. WO
has the first issue handled in spades from what I've been able to
glean, but the second has always troubled me terribly. There are few
books available, general disregard for the technology by the general
technical population and even complete blank stares when WO is
mentioned. Not good for decision makers to see.
My thoughts regarding why WO has languished this past year has been one
of mixed concern. One item I've seriously come to a conclusion is that
Apple only has so many resources to use on the many various prongs of
their business strategy. However, it's beginning to appear to me that
over time, Apple has the potential to become an Enterprise player again
as their OS & Server platform is now starting to get a nice groundswell
of interest by Enterprise types. Apple is providing exceptionally good
value and so people are having to at least take a look and they do at
least like what they see. I know I was quite surprised. With this
additional momentum, I think that WebObjects will see more and more
evaluations taking place. I also believe that WO in its current state
appears to be pretty darn solid. The issues that seem to be bashed
about are always those regarding the EOModeler and WOBuilder not having
been updated in years. It seems that I rarely see a complaint about
the framework itself. This leads me to believe that the underlying
technology is quite sound, but the tools are the problem, hence WOLips
and such have come into being. All this leads to is that Apple didn't
NEED to spend alot of time on WO this past year. They are however
working quite agressively on their XCode toolset, and I'm thinking that
WO will play into that once their tool infrastructure is prepared and
ready. Pure speculation on my part. They also are using their own
technology to drive some of the biggest cash cows they've got - iTunes.
That alone speaks volumes.
Now, the other major bitching seems to be related to the lack of
marketing of WO by Apple. Yup - wish they had a WO specific
Consultants Network or something to push leads out, but it isn't there
and I'm not holding my breath. So, for major projects and accounts to
consider WO, unfortunately the ball is in Apple's court. They aren't
tooled up to handle this from what I can tell, or I've not been talking
to the right people. Regardless - big projects need to have the vendor
involved I think. This is something that I do wish Apple would
address.
So what can we, the WO literate do? The website that you speak of is
certainly one item, though I question yet another WO site unless we can
get a link on the Apple WO page in the Other Resources section. The
second major issue we could address collectively is that WO isn't being
written about at all in any of the major development magazines or
websites. Surprisely, when I initially started to look at WO I
immediately went to http://www.theServerSide.com and found absolutely
NOTHING on WO. I was quite surprised by this. Nothing on SlashDot.
Nothing on any of the major Java magazine sites. Pretty weird I
thought - something this good and nobody is writing about it? I truly
think that this is a critical missing element in reaching the mindset
of existing and new developers. Nobody is writing about it, so nobody
thinks it has merit or worst has even heard of it. You can have a
website of Why WebObjects, but how are you going to get folks there?
Until WO has peaked the interest of those folks that aren't running on
Apple hardware, WO will continue to be relegated to a small
marketplace. Now that WO can run on JBoss or TomCat, my gosh you can
run WO on ANY OS! So, why isn't this getting people to check out WO
now that WO is effectively able to run on Linux, Windows, Solaris and
others? We WO developers need to have a concerted effort to raise the
awareness level on the various media outlets available to us all.
Until java developers & IT management using Struts or JSP or Tapestry
or any other web technology (even .NET) read a lucid and clear article
on WO technology or techniques, they most like will not head to the
proposed website. Somehow, we need to begin beating on a drum and get
folks to swing by for a look - otherwise we'll all just be whispering
in the dark. Case in point - Tapestry was one man's effort to come up
with a better way. He spent ALOT of time posting on theServerSide and
other lists and soon he was able to build a groundswell of awareness.
Eventually, this led to his project being incorporated into the Apache
projects. Hugely unbelievable that one guy could do so much, but self
marketing his project almost to the point of obnoxiousness got him a
ton of exposure and now Tapestry is probably more recognized than
WebObjects to the general development population. Is WO worth that
much zealousness?
A too long diatribe, but I too would like to see WO become more than
the marketing step-child that it currently seems to be relegated to.
Best regards...Bob
Bob McCormick
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