Re: State of WebObjects
Re: State of WebObjects
- Subject: Re: State of WebObjects
- From: Ian Joyner <email@hidden>
- Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 14:57:49 +1000
On 29/06/2006, at 8:46 AM, 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.
To see why OO is (or at least should be) much more than just
programming language, and involved in every aspect from design to
testing and debugging, and the whole software lifecycle, you should
read Bertrand Meyer's very clear "Object-Oriented Software
Construction":
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0136291554/102-6193962-6904136?
v=glance&n=283155
This also introduces the important concept of design by contract so
that software can be designed as cooperating (contractual) modules
(objects), which helps in everything from design to testing. The
concepts introduced can be applied to Java and WebObjects and will
certainly help, as well as explain some concepts that Java doesn't
have, like multiple inheritance, genericity, assertions (DBC) with
exception handling, anchored types, and covariance (at least without
undermining the advantage of strong typing with type casts).
It's a good book explaining why we do what we do... or maybe what we
should be doing because we aren't!
Ian
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
_______________________________________________
Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.
Webobjects-dev mailing list (email@hidden)
Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription:
40mdimension.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:
40thetimmy.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:
40sportstec.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:
This email sent to email@hidden