On Nov 1, 2003, at 8:16 PM, John Hall wrote:
> The company I work for is considering using WebObjects for a project.
> (Or, more specifically, they are looking to buy a software tool that
> is written in WebObjects.) Naturally, since our shop is new to Java
> (having only recently made the switch from Visual Basic and ASP to
> Java and JSP), there are a lot of managers nervous about it. They
> asked me to look into WebObjects. I think it's an exciting platform,
> and from the little I've learned about WOProject, it looks to be a
> fantastic complement to it. The Windows IDE for WebObjects seems to
> be a couple of versions behind the Mac IDE, so I can eaily see myself
> using WOLips instead of the WebObjects Windows IDE.
>
> But that's beside the point.
> My manager was recently told that Apple will discontinue support for
> the Windows version of the WebObjects development platform and instead
> "support Open Source." (If this is merely FUD, please correct me.)
> Since the only platform restriction on WOLips is the use of WOBuilder
> and EOModeler, if Apple were to discontinue development on the Windows
> versions of these tools, how would that impact WOProject? Would we
> still be able to build WebObjects applications with WOProject?
Hi John,
Probably your manager has sources of information that I don't, but I
haven't heard anything about any Apple plans at all, and I don't think
this is something they would discuss publicly (or even with preferred
customers). But you are absolutely right about the totally inferior
tool support on Windows. This was my main and only personal reason why
I created WOProject Ant tasks in 2002 (Ulrich was on Mac when he
started WOLips, so I guess Mac tools sucked at least as much at the
moment :-)).
Now regardless of the future tools support on Windows (that neither I
or you can predict), WO is pure Java and therefore would work with
WOProject Ant tasks and WOLips Eclipse plugin. Also any WO project
structure itself is pretty conservative and dates back to NeXT and
Objective C (and the same idea is used for Mac OS X desktop apps), so
again I can't see why WOLips would suddenly break down.
Loosing WOBuilder and EOModeler as productivity tools (I really can see
troubles with EOModeler - it still uses java 1.1, so you have to put
all your JDBC drivers in CLASSPATH even if they are in lib/ext) would
be painful, but not deadly. CayenneModeler
(http://objectstyle.org/cayenne/modelerguide/index.html) can take over
where EOModeler left. It already *reads* EOModels (though there are
unfixed issues with some advanced scenarios like cross model
relationships). Adding *write* support should be trivial, if there is a
community need for it (there is none at the moment, so nobody cares to
implement this).
I don't think there is any Open Source alternatives to WOBuilder
(though it is worth investigating current Tapestry Eclipse plugins),
but the .wod and .html files format is straightforward and is easily
edited by hand (I personally even considered WOBuilder only in WO 4.5,
before that it was just a resource hog, not a productivity tool). Now I
do enjoy WYSIWYG mode in WOBuilder, and it helps, especially for demos
and initial prototyping. But when all my pages become more and more
parameterized, I find myself using manual edit mode more and more often
anyway.
Hope this gives you a case for some optimism ;-)
> instead "support Open Source."
Do you know if WOLips was mentioned as Open Source in this context ? :-)
Andrus
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