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Re: A "Why WebObjects" Site / Initial Thoughts Please (Modified by Bob McCormick)
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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: Ashley Aitken <email@hidden>
  • Date: Sun, 4 Jul 2004 17:45:17 +0800

Hi Bob,

I see you addressed your post to Ryan, but I hope you don't mind me jumping in with some comments.

On 04/07/2004, at 11:20 AM, Bob McCormick wrote:

... 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

If WO is appropriate (scale, functionality) and you have developers with appropriate skills and knowledge (not just ones who think they do ;-) then my suggestions would be to go with WO!


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.

Yes, I agree.

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.

It seems like WO won't be going away in the short-medium term, which is really all you can ask for from any technology. Are EJBs (in their current) form going to be around in the long-term?


Consider how long the Apple store will be around, and the iTunes Music Store, this will give you and indication of how long WebObjects will be around for. When better technologies come along to (re)implement these core business systems then I think it will be clear to Apple and WebObjects developers.

WO documentation is now generally speaking very good. There are some great books (and more coming out), there is an excellent developer community (with mailing lists, open source projects, and Web sites). The only place it is probably a little weak is with indepth details about some of the D2* technologies.

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.

Yes, that's very true for Apple (and most other companies, especially during this tech down-turn).


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.

Yes, Apple users get great value as Apple try to convince others to buy Apple hardware (this is especially true in the Enterprise). Remember also, that if you are an Apple user then most of the rest of the stuff comes very cheaply (if not freely) because it is usually used to sell the hardware.


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.

Yes, WO is not perfect but the core (excluding D2* technologies) is definitely mature (even give the move from Objective-C to Java which cause some problems for a while).


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.

I don't think Apple can do this (or justify doing this) whilst WO is as cheap as it is. I guess most of the $50K you pay for WebSphere (or similar) goes to paying for these enterprise consultants and support.


I think I recall some people in Apple testing the water about a "price rise" (perhaps based on WO transactions as it originally was, e.g. cheap for hit-rate, more expensive for higher hit-rate).

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.

I have written a paper about WO that compares it with J2EE and MS.Net. I will try and do some more work on it - it is a draft now - and release it more generally.


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. Is WO worth that much zealousness?

Yes, I think so. I personally do a lot of it - give seminars about WO, use it in teaching and developer training courses, post on Web forums (even theserverside.com). It is a little depressing though when Apple does so much less and sometimes even gets in the way of such acts of support.


Cheers,
Ashley.

--
Ashley Aitken
Perth, Western Australia
mrhatken at mac dot com
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