newbie WO/EOF questions
newbie WO/EOF questions
- Subject: newbie WO/EOF questions
- From: Boris Herman <email@hidden>
- Date: Sun, 2 Oct 2005 20:58:14 +0200
Hello list,
I've been programming database applications for quite a while now.
First with flat files and manual indexes in the 80's, then with local
databases with concurrent lockings over to RDBMS and SQL. I've been
using several RAD tools in several programming languages so the
choices are plenty.
A client of ours wants to port (i.e. write anew) their business
system which now runs as a win/mac client connected to a SQL server.
They want to have it as an intranet application that runs in a
browser window. Since I've been writing my own SQL statements for
well over a decade the choice would be something like PHP but I've
been looking at WebObjects as it is more advanced, needs less
maintanence and vital components (such as SQL server) to a system can
be changed without major changes in program. I really like the
"upside-down" mechanism (frameworks) and the fact that most things
that have to be done manually in PHP are done completely automatic. I
know that WO is application server and PHP is just a scripting
language but I'm talking solutions here, not technologies. Also a big
plus is that the client already has 10.4 server up and running (which
includes deployment license for WO) and I'm doing most of the work on
my Macs anyway.
The trouble I'm facing (and I'm probably not the only one) is that
the EOF needs a totally different way of thinking which is
incompatible to my previous experience. I'm worried that during the
development I will subconciously revert to old style programming and
not the "WebObjects way". The moto I've read "if you are writing
code, you are doing something wrong" haunts me and reminds me over
and over that I really need to learn something new really well.
I've purchased and digested several books on the topic, including two
that I've seen most recommended: Webobjects for Mac OS X by Joshua
Marker (which doesn't go deep enough for my taste) and Practical
WebObjects (which will most certainly become a priceless resource
AFTER I've become a full grown WebObjects developer). I've also gone
thru most of the tutorials and walktroughs available on the net.
But I still don't know my ways around EOF, in particular to
relationships, be it to-one or to-many. I've grown so accustomed to
writing SQL queries (thinking SQL) and making relationships (or
iterating thru) with SELECTs I'm having a hard time grasping the new
concept. Until now I SELECTed any relationships either inner or outer
joins and used the foreign columns as they were columns in the source
table (hence the join). Now in WebObjects, I have whole records (in
to-one) and NSArrays of whole records (in to-many) as the result of a
relationship. Things get even more hairy when I have relationships
several levels deep and mixed to-one and to-many.
Where would a database app developer like me get proper guidance to
start seriously on WebObjects on a semi-large project? The client
database has about 20 tables, the main ones have over 2 mio records,
each full of metadata of different types and 5 foreign keys. There is
also a text field, which is occasionally searched via fulltext index
and relevance scoring.
Thanks for any input and suggestions,
Boris Herman
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