Re: WO Builder, Marketing etc...
Re: WO Builder, Marketing etc...
- Subject: Re: WO Builder, Marketing etc...
- From: Thomas <email@hidden>
- Date: Sun, 13 Aug 2006 10:40:32 +1000
There has been so much bashing of WOBuilder and XCode lately, and so
little discussion of PROJECT productivity (as opposed to Java
productivity) that I feel the need to add my own opinion in support
of Andrew.
But before people start repeating their opinions that the WoBuilder
way is just cheap tricks and only useful for neophytes, here's a
little information about me:
- I have been using WebObjects since 3.x
- Almost all my work is delivered using WebObjects
- I have been writing Java code since Sun first released it
- customers are happy to pay me a very good rate by the hour because
I get things done well and quickly.
- the time I spend on paid development work would break down
something like this:
- Using WOBuilder: 40%
- Defining what is to be done: 20%
- Writing Java code: 10%
- Trying to get CSS to do the right thing on all browsers: 10%
- Using EOModeler: 5%
- Fiddling with databases: 5%
I'm sure there is another 20% of other stuff 8^)
The point I am trying to make is that WOBuilder is my primary
development tool. Not because of its WYSIWYG capabilities, which
really suck. I must emphasise the distinction between WYSIWYG and
"Visual Development."
WOBuilder :
- shows me a logical hierarchy of the elements in my components;
- allows me to inspect and edit them and their bindings (that is
their communication API with the parent component);
- possibly most important of all, it provides me with a schema
browser that allows me to visually drill down into all the objects in
the system and choose appropriate attributes and methods, and link
those to components in the page.
In a project with a couple of hundred persistent entities, code
completion is not very useful to me. The ability to click on an
entity and get a list of all its methods is fundamental to the way I
work. (of course a popup of the Javadoc would be a fantastic
improvement...)
And lastly, although I have written millions of lines of Java, I do
it less and less these days because it is NOT the most productive way
to get the project finished. I find that almost any effort expended
in finding ways to avoid writing code pays off in reduced overall
development time.
This may be the crux of the heated debate. Programmers (as opposed to
those who have responsibility for delivering a finished product on
time and on budget) will naturally focus on coding efficiency. But
that is only a small part of the project.
For WebObjects to move forward without WOBuilder, we need a visually-
oriented tool that does the three things I described above. I am sure
that some people don't need it, but many people do. To say that only
newbies and klutzes use WOBuilder is an insult to many experienced
developers, and I believe it shows a focus on the narrow coding
issues rather than the overall productivity.
The purpose of Project Wonder seems to me to improve everybody's
development efficiency by encapsulating functionality and testing. I
am very appreciative of all those wonderful people who have
contributed. I don't believe I am qualified to contribute because I
don't spend enough time in the plumbing to understand it. I hope that
my focus on alternative development approaches and overall project
efficiency can serve as some kind of positive contribution.
Regards
Thomas
On 13/08/2006, at 9:25, email@hidden wrote:
And on top of this, WOBuilder is pretty much a POS anyway,
...
DID), I don't want to just remake WO Builder, because I fundamentally
disagree with its workflow as a viable tool for component
I undertake some substantial human-facing projects and contrary to
opinion here, I do find WO Builder to be a really fabulous,
pragmatic tool despite its blemishes. I don't particularly need
CSS integration in WO Builder despite using CSS heavily in the end
result. I suppose many of us work in different ways and our apps
are probably slightly differently architectured so these tools may
have differing levels of applicability depending on the way we
operate.
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