Hi guys, first of all, i would like to thank you all for your help. Your opinions are wise enough to confirm me what I was expecting. So, i'll stick with the current solution for this project, leaving open the possibility for a change on a near future. Not because I'm afraid of the time needed to learn and apply the knowledge on these subjects (Spring, Hybernate, Red5 or openAMF), but because there is a risk associated with my inexperience with them. Spring and Hybernate do not scare me at all, what scares me most is what will happen when unexpected things occur. Especially when i do not have experience with Java on the web - this may not seem a big deal, but it's important to be comfortable with specific stability and security issues, among others, to know from the start that the server won't crash, or act unexpectedly.
After finishing onFashion, i'll dedicate my time to change the current framework to use Spring, Hybernate and openAMF, apply it to future projects, and refactor the server-side code of onFashion. When Red5 seems stable enough for production server, i'll replace openAMF for Red5. The hurry with using this already, was because: - i am completely tired of the code to access the RDBMS, convert it to objects, and vice-versa, which takes a lot of development time not focused on the business rules or usability - so i would use an ORM solution, like Hibernate, which would require Java - comparing to PHP, Java is much more mature solution, and preferable when we desperately need maintainability - so i would change PHP for Java - once you use UML live bi-directional synchronization with the code, you cannot go back. I've used it with Java, two or three years ago, and i said i was never going to stop using it. I break my word when i chose PHP for the server side code of my RIAs ..... I want to go back to the bright and shiny days of UML - so i would change PHP for Java - onFashion will have videos (and this is an important part of the project), and it's preferable to have streaming to serve them - so i would use Red5 - onFashion will have a chat at a later time - so a push server technology is vital, just like Red5 - CastingOffice (another project) and onFashion on certain sections require to have the clients synchronized - so a push server technology is vital, just like Red5 - I believe that if the server can handle it, a push server will be the future for enterprise RIA's, and very dynamic web-sites - .....Red5 and the last one: - assuming all those premisses, it would be preferable to invest time developing onFashion already using the referred technologies, than to wait, develop the framework and refactor onFashion server-side code, which would take more time and resources Anyway, you are completely right. Time is not enough to take the risk of having to deal with unexpected issues. Unfortunately i feel like a little kid playing with big toys. I do have initiative, will, and enough knowledge to try to use the best techniques around there - improving our Agile development environment is what i love to do, and that's why with so little resources we normally give a great response. But i have finished my graduation two or three months ago, i'm starting on my own, and as you can imagine money is something i do not have for now so it's impossible to make investments like recruiting more people to work. Worse, life in Portugal it's not easy for who's starting, and definitely there is lack of knowledge among our developers - i risk to say that only about 5% of the Portuguese developers knows how to use a design pattern. Thanks a lot once again for your opinions, they surely helped me to make my decision. :) Best of lucks for Red5, and also for Chris Allen and his beloved one. :) João Saleiro _______________________________________________ Red5 mailing list [email protected] http://osflash.org/mailman/listinfo/red5_osflash.org
