Re: State of WebObjects
Re: State of WebObjects
- Subject: Re: State of WebObjects
- From: Timmy <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 16:22:15 -0700
Scott et al:
Excellent suggestions from Miguel.
Also, it has been said that Chuck Hill's book is for more advanced WO
practitioners. Personally, I recommend it as well because you may
need to solve specific problems in your first project that you just
don't know how to approach. Chuck's book is good for pulling some
solutions before you know "why" sometimes. Frankly, I also had the
good fortune to have a couple Apple employees as mentors - and that
is invaluable.
To be frank, the most difficult thing is learning Java and if you've
never done any OO programming it is tough. There's the syntax AND the
"ideology" of it - so that is daunting to tackle two clear
differences to what you're used to. I didn't read much and I didn't
read the books Miguel suggested. I should probably go back and do
that now. However, after some time it (OO stuff) really got drummed
into me and started to make sense on it's own. I understand why the
procedural approach seems logical - it is good for solving very
particular problems. Using a procedural language, it would be very
difficult to code something like what I'm working on now.
In a nutshell, I can not only refer to my database entities as
objects but I can create any object I want and define the way it
interacts with other objects. An object has abilities and attributes
(think dungeons and dragons :-) ) just like the pen on my desk. I
don't really know how to tell you how cool that is - but it is.
Anything about an object is in the class describing the object.
I don't know what pressures you may have to get started, I don't know
what your timetable is, I don't know how good you are at learning new
things, and I don't know how well you conceptualize the abstract
(which you need to be able to do in OO land and some people just
can't). If you are strong in the latter two areas, this may be a good
transition for you.
Tim
On Jun 28, 2006, at 4:01 PM, Miguel Arroz wrote:
Hi!
I strongly recommend you to read the "Object Oriented
Programming" of this book: http://developer.apple.com/documentation/
Cocoa/Conceptual/ObjectiveC/ObjC.pdf
Although it's about ObjC, it's one of the best OO introductions I
have ever seen. Of course, it covers the "object" concept used in C+
+/ObjC/Java kind of languages. There are other OO-languages (like
smalltalk and CLOS/LISP) that take completely different approaches
to what an object is (I particularly like CLOS, but that's my
personal opinion). Anyway, I remember that I read that chapter and
it has transmitted me the OO ideia a lot better that my whole OO
course during the graduation (the course was really bad, imagine a
OO course where you end up HATING smalltalk... fortunately, after
finishing the graduation, we organized some sessions with a really
cool professor who has shown us the path to heaven, ie, smalltalk,
clos, a working LISP machine, etc)! :)
Back to subject, after that chapter, try to find a good Java
book. O'Reilley usually have great books, I don't know what they
have on Java, but I would start my search at their site.
Yours
Miguel Arroz
On 2006/06/28, at 23:46, Scott Henderson wrote:
First, Thank You to all who have responded and participated to my
post.
Good information.
Tim, I am particularly interested in your newbie experience. As I
mentioned, OO programming is going to be a new experience for me.
I like the procedural approach... it seems natural and logical.
That said, I am completely open to embracing the OO approach.
Based on your fresh experience, do have any particular Learning
Path or Resources that you feel stand-out. I have been reading
the WO Docs and they make sense, but I have not begun to use any
of the Tools. I really hope to become competent to put together a
fairly basic data-based website sooner rather than later. Hoping
to grasp WO quick enough to accomplish the task... and refine my
skills as time goes on.
I always find I learn 'new' things best when motivated. I am
motivated to learn WO. Just wanted to make sure it was a good bet.
Thanks for any further comments.
Scott
On Jun 28, 2006, at 5:33 PM, Timmy wrote:
I've enjoyed learning to be a curmudgeon. :-)
I can speak to this topic being pretty fresh. I do agree that
prior to taking on my current project (which really necessitated
learning something more powerful like WO), I was attracted to
more procedural, interpreted languages. It really has taken me
quite a while and I'm still considered a newbie in these halls
but object oriented programming has really freed me in my
opinion. I can conceptualize problems and their solutions in a
completely different way.
Certainly, having EOF and key/value coding on top of that is
really a bonus. My first WO project has been highly complex and
taken much more time than expected to get done - mostly due to my
own deficiencies noted above. I've enjoyed solving the puzzle.
However, this product is going to be without peer on our campus.
This is all to say, I think WO is an excellent choice if you have
the time to learn something new - and learn it right. As
previously noted, I can't see WO really going anywhere with it
being so entrenched in Apple. Although the use of jsp for the new
support discussion boards makes me go "hmmmm."
Tim
p.s. I also like that there are some job opportunities for folks
who know this technology so it is worthwhile from that
perspective (from my vantage point).
On Jun 28, 2006, at 3:21 PM, Mike Schrag wrote:
<unsubstantiated-theory-mode>
I think there's something about interpreted languages that makes
a psychological difference for "non-programmers". Perl, PHP,
Ruby, Javascript all attract many of the same types of people
(not that Ruby doesn't attract programmer types as well, but
those languages all tend to attract "non-programmers" more than,
say, Java), and I think there's something to be said for not
having a compile stage. There's a certain freedom that it
presents for people who tend to be more unstructured (i.e.
designers) in their approach to solving programming problems.
Additionally, I believe weak typing plays a role in a similar
way. I'm personally a fan of strong typing, but I can see the
weak-typing, interpreted allure for someone who is starting out
in development by "messing around" or just tweaking a program
they got from somewhere else. There is a certain intellectual
overhead in compiling and typing that I can see being a turnoff
for that approach to developing.
So while I do agree that conceptually they're both doing very
similar things, I think those additional attributes DO make a
difference.
And of course it's just hot and WO is for curmudgeons like all
of us :)
</unsubstantiated-theory-mode>
ms
I still don't see this. A Rails scaffolding app is analogous
to a WO Wizard or D2W app; they both have the same advantages
and disadvantages, and take roughly the same amount of time to
set up. If you don't see people using WO to do this, it
doesn't mean that it can't be done - it just means that Rails
is the latest flavour of the month, evangelical product.
As for the concepts, there are just as many. You still need to
learn the frameworks, and Rails has a lot of things that aren't
intuitively obvious (just the same as WO, only different); the
naming conventions, for one thing. The only real difference I
see is that WO is fanatical about MVC (in comparison to Rails),
and Rails likes to blur the edges. This could be a really
important difference, and quite possibly the only significant one.
Paul
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"GUERRA E' PAZ
LIBERDADE E' ESCRAVIDAO
IGNORANCIA E' FORCA" -- 1984
Miguel Arroz
http://www.ipragma.com
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