• Open Menu Close Menu
  • Apple
  • Shopping Bag
  • Apple
  • Mac
  • iPad
  • iPhone
  • Watch
  • TV
  • Music
  • Support
  • Search apple.com
  • Shopping Bag
 

Lists

Open Menu Close Menu
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Lists hosted on this site
  • Email the Postmaster
  • Tips for posting to public mailing lists
Re: WebObjects Foundation
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: WebObjects Foundation


  • Subject: Re: WebObjects Foundation
  • From: Chuck Hill <email@hidden>
  • Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2006 13:20:52 -0700


On Aug 22, 2006, at 8:01 AM, Michael Warner wrote:

I found this post to be one of the most spot on. Senior WO developers have stepped up on the list, post WWDC 2006. That is both praiseworthy and
reassuring. Yet the fact remains that apart from the important issues of lack of marketing and of built-in, up-to-date user- interface and other convenience tools,
the difficulty of learning adequate and best-practice ways of manipulating existing code, for the beginning or journeyman WO developer, remains a paramount
consideration.


If I may wax old-school for a moment -- actual, physical books can make a huge difference in this situation.

I will argue (from some experience) that the situation makes a big difference in publishers wanting to publish books. Books on WO and Wonder are not going to make them popular. WO and Wonder being popular will drive the demand for books which will then get written. Publishers don't like to invest money in books if they don't have a reasonable expectation of selling them.


Unlike some of the existing web-based
information-sharing tools, books are expected, except for errata, to be very accurate -- even authoritative! I'm looking here at Addison-Wesley's "The Java Developer's Guide to Eclipse." 2nd
Edition. The book (not chosen at random) including the extensive index, is over 1000 pages long. And that is just for an IDE.


For a code-base as extensive as WebObjects, especially if Project Wonder is included, several volumes would need to be written. Imagine browsing your local Barnes and Noble shelf and running across the 5 volume series 'Developer's Guide to WebObjects' each volume as thick as the Eclipse Guide mentioned above. Imagine each volume being something like the Joshua Marker book on steroids -- with clearly stated steps and helpful diagrams, even on advanced topics.

Is this do-able? Very much so.

IME, no not really.


How about getting Apple and O'Reilly perhaps to sponsor such a project?

What is their motivation?


How about asking a handful of WO experts to assemble teams of writers, each with practical experience in a particular branch of the code base, to write a chapter or two? Start with a 'core' book and branch out from there. Learn from the limitations of each of the existing WO books. To be a contributor to such an enterprise would (a) make a carefully thought out contribution to the WO community, (b) be a feather in one's cap if done well.

I have been thinking about this sort of book for a while, sort of a Cookbook approach to various topics. I like the idea a lot!
There has not been a lot of interest on the publishers side. If we manage to get the community organized and populated, then selling such an idea will be very easy.



Chuck


Two years from now books on the shelf could be a reality. The mere existence of such books would make a statement, even a marketing statement, that WO is excellent, reliable, hugely scalable, time- saving and here to stay.

So, to the senior wo developers out there I make this hip-hop enhanced plea -- show current and future WO developers, and even their bosses, 'how to get down' . Do it in clear, concise, detailed and carefully considered text.

Mike Warner



On Aug 22, 2006, at 7:52 AM, Johan Henselmans wrote:


I am a bit surprised about all this discussion of using non- WebObjects solutions for a WebObjects site. As far as I know there is


-a WebObjects wiki (http://wodev.spearway.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/ WODev.)
-a Webobjects CMS (http://sourceforge.net/projects/gvcsitemaker/)
-a Webobjects BugTracker (See Example Applications in Wonder in http://sourceforge.net/projects/wonder)


three opensource attempts at replicating WebObjects functionality and API's:

-GSWEB (http://www.gnustepweb.org/)
-SOPE/JOPE (http://sope.opengroupware.org/)
-WOTONOMY (http://sourceforge.net/projects/wotonomy)

a site that collects WO code snippets  (http://www.wocode.com)

some site that propagate using WebObjects

with movies of how to use webobjects:
http://rentzsch.com/webobjects/introTo5
http://woworx.visionworxpro.com/

and books
(See some of the sites for links)

So it seems that all the elements that are needed for making a nice WebObjects presence, make it as open source as possible and organize a proper foundation are already in place. It is all a bit scattered, and I think that it would be better to focus on getting these things nicely organized, and working properly and make sure that they are kept up to date.

What I miss:
-proper examples (no more 'the rest of the implementation is simple and is left as an exercise to the reader').


-a real nice and complete implementation of all the possible ways one can use web objects: HTML, WebServices, AJAX, JavaClient, DirectToWeb, DirectToJava, with forms, mailings, print reports etc, preferably for one problem-space.
The thinkmovies example of Apple seems a bit too far off from the common work-environment for that purpose. I think of something the northwind database that came as an example with MS-Access (is it still?), or the Filemaker templates, that are mostly sufficient for most of the information needs for small organisations, and can be used right away. Of course, it would be expandable in an easy way with examples of how to expand it (localizations, custom components etc). Preferably the example would link up to most of the popular databases (mysql, postgresql, openbase, frontbase, filemaker, oracle, ms-sqlserver, db2, etc).
This example (or examples) should be the reason that people start using WebObjects. A re-implementation of some opensource solution developed in PHP, J2EE or .NET to prove the efficiency of WebObjects compared to these development tools would also be nice (the open source J2EE ERP solution www.compiere.org comes to mind). For developers/ICT people some kind of asset-bug-project- time-support-tracking-software selling system would be nice, and would spread the reputation of WebObjects among the group that would be capable of steering investment-decisions in the WebObjects direction.


Johan Henselmans

_______________________________________________
Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.
Webobjects-dev mailing list (email@hidden)
Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription:
40codefab.com


This email sent to email@hidden


_______________________________________________
Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.
Webobjects-dev mailing list (email@hidden)
Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription:
40global-village.net


This email sent to email@hidden


--

Practical WebObjects - for developers who want to increase their overall knowledge of WebObjects or who are trying to solve specific problems. http://www.global-village.net/products/practical_webobjects





_______________________________________________
Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.
Webobjects-dev mailing list      (email@hidden)
Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription:
This email sent to email@hidden


  • Follow-Ups:
    • Re: WebObjects Foundation
      • From: Q <email@hidden>
    • Re: WebObjects Foundation
      • From: Ian Joyner <email@hidden>
References: 
 >Re: WebObjects Foundation (From: "Marc Oesch" <email@hidden>)
 >Re: WebObjects Foundation (From: Johan Henselmans <email@hidden>)
 >Re: WebObjects Foundation (From: Michael Warner <email@hidden>)

  • Prev by Date: Re: Using distinct in to-many relationship?
  • Next by Date: Re: stuck on a WO island
  • Previous by thread: Re: WebObjects Foundation
  • Next by thread: Re: WebObjects Foundation
  • Index(es):
    • Date
    • Thread