On Friday 09 December 2005 02:21, Stefano Mazzocchi wrote:
And in terms of moving the "equi-cost" point to the left, there are two
fundmentally different variables to consider.
for instance, if t
____
y = a * b / x `
\/
total cost of ownership (y)
^
| o
| o |
| o |
| o v
| o \ 2.
| o \
|o 1.
+---------------------->
complexity (x)
1. Essential focus on lessening the threshold, i.e. lower "a".
2. Increasing the power of the functionality that are required for really
complex systems, i.e. increasing the root base.
Often, these are also interlinked, and it is important that the lowering of
"a" doesn't make ( b < 1 )...
I think everyone are at this point focusing on 1. The "market" talks about
"quick starters" and Cocoon peeps wants to "me too" in that area. I don't
give a flying fart about RubyOnRail as my gut says that it doesn't make it
easier to become the next Rembrandt, only providing me with more cryons than
the other kids.
I think Stefano's RF is great. He challenges people's presence and
motivations. If you want to do weblog apps - GO. If you want to DB record
viewer app - GO. If you want JAWA (Just Another Web Application) - GO.
GO - because there are 50 other frameworks out there, all of them with their
strengths, weaknesses and hype. I am sure there is some that suits YOU, as
well as me. JAWA is not why I keep my interest...
The reason to stay, is not to compete with Struts, Tapestry, Wicket, RoR, PHP
and every other JAWA framework out there.
The orthogonality of Cocoon has "died". Noone talks about views. Noone
highlights the ability to serve same content to many user agents. Noone is
interested in truly useful smaller components. Noone cares about the
developer vs designer vs deployer roles.
I am predicting that the next round of waves will not be around delivering
HTML or XML to web browsers, AJAX or not. It will center around dedicated
clients. And not _any_ client - but the Mobile clients.
And this is a lot more interesting to Cocoon than one first realizes.
1. Cocoon is already equipped to serve mobile clients, both WML and binary
formats. No change required.
2. The most important aspect is the ability to generate media for different
device models. No change required.
3. Americans have no clue about what is about to happen. Europeans are better
prepared, and Cocoon is apparently a very European project.
So, all of you who wants JAWA, Cocoon may not be the best tool. I don't think
we should even try to become the best. Cocoon is already great in many
aspects. We should concentrate on this, and become the defacto standard for
mobile backends.
Finally, my take on what "Cocoon Really Needs".
Cocoon needs a New Vision Statement. One paragraph of what Cocoon is all
about, that blows my (the user's) mind away.
Cocoon needs better Marketing. Struts didn't become Struts by developers
complimenting each other on how great they were. Grab the opportunity of
becoming the mobile backend 'standard'.
Cocoon needs new Architecture. Marc's "to the point" list of how to get that
organized is a good starting point.
Cocoon needs better Documentation. Yeah, yeah, I know the story ;o)
My 2 cents.
Niclas
