Re: WOBuilder Replacement
Re: WOBuilder Replacement
- Subject: Re: WOBuilder Replacement
- From: Chuck Hill <email@hidden>
- Date: Thu, 5 Jul 2007 11:23:51 -0700
On Jul 5, 2007, at 11:16 AM, Lachlan Deck wrote:
On 05/07/2007, at 10:30 PM, Mike Schrag wrote:
Those estimates were all for starting from scratch, which I
believe is what should be done (Apple will not release the source
to the original, anyway -- I've brought it up several times over
the last couple years). To do a WOBuilder properly, it needs to
be rethought. WOBuilder now is built like IB, but that's really
not exactly right, because in a proper system, you're dealing
almost entirely in custom components and you can only really
render custom components with live-like data (or in a live
environment). I have some ideas for this, but a lot of it just
comes down to interface experimentation to see what works and what
doesn't. If we built a WOBuilder, we would really only build one
that I would use, too, so it has to not suck (this quite possibly
means such an app is not an Eclipse plugin, but just has an
eclipse plugin integration layer along the lines of how WOB + PB/
Xc work).
I think about this app all the time, but I just have not yet seen
the economics. I asked at WWDC who would pay "real
money" (granted, an unspecified amount) for a WOBuilder and VERY
few hands went up in a pretty large room of WO developers. I'm
with Jerry ... I am just not convinced that there would be enough
licenses sold to justify such an effort. Who knows .. Maybe I'm
wrong. Speak up with #'s and prove me wrong. Email me directly
if you're not comfortable posting on the list and I'll post some
aggregates. Like I said, I think about this all the time, but I
have to be able to go to my boss (who graciously already lets me
donate huge numbers of man-hours to this stuff as it stands) with
some sort of justification for putting people on a project like
this for several months.
... and don't forget that this would need to be an ongoing project
with ongoing improvements (rather than getting to the point of
standing still, like the old tools, after the initial features are
in place). That's a serious business decision to make. Considering
that Apple used to charge US$699, or whatever it was, for the whole
set, including the frameworks - I think you'd need to be committed
to keeping up with or ahead of the game in order to ensure
continued revenue. It'd need to be compelling enough to make enough
people cough up the funds time and time again.
There are a lot of good business reasons to _not_ develop this. I
notice that everyone wants Mike to do it. I don't see anyone who
thinks it is such a good idea that their company should do it. :-)
Chuck
--
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
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