Hi Austin,
first, welcome and congrats on making the step of posting to a
mailing list. Many people are too shy to ever do so. Don't be afraid
about asking seemingly 'stupid' questions, we all were beginners
once, and when moving to something new we all ask about what seems
obvious for the initiated. Just for you to know, as a rule of thumb
in public mailing lists, the only attitude that can get people angry
is when someone clearly hasn't even bothered to read the
documentation or search the internet, and expects others to do his
work for him. This is clearly not your case.
The rest of my answers follow in-line with your questions:
> I apologize if this question has been answered or seems very
> juvenile, but I have searched the forums, reviewed code, and watched
> all of tutorials, viewed the wiki, etc., and it just does not seem
> evident on exactly how to retrieve items created in the "back end" of
> the crud jumpstart for view in the "front end".
I'll try to explain the architecture a bit, and hope to be clear and
simple enough. I've never actually had to explain this and I honestly
can't believe that I didn't think of adding a section about this to
the RIFE documentation. Also, when searching Google I can see that
the real useful information is hidden amidst the wealth of search
results.
RIFE (and most other frameworks) adopt a three-tier application
architecture. This means that your application has three clearly
distinct aspects: a data tier (database), an application tier (web
server with web framework), and a client tier (browser). This is a
break down of what typically happens when someone uses an application
in this application, I think this should help you get further along:
1. They send what is called 'a request' through their browser by
visiting
the URL of your application.
2. That request is intercepted by your web server and some logic is
executed on the application tier. This could for instance go to the
database to retrieve some data, or read a file from the file
system of
your web server.
3. The web server sends back the data to the user through what is called
'a response'.
4. The browser receives the response and displays it to the user.
Steps 1 and 3 work thanks to the HTTP protocol that bundles both the
request and the response in a single 'operation'. Basically what
happens is this:
* the browser sends data, and waits for an answer
* the web server was waiting for data, receives it and sends a response
* the browser received the response and shows the result
> I am very new to programming, and I am just trying to learn, so
> please do not ridicule too much. ;-)
>
> I have spent the last few months trying to "pick" a framework to dive
> into. I worked mostly with struts2 and jsf, but dabbled with
> stripes, wicket, grails, spring mvc, the usual suspects, and stumbled
> upon RIFE.
Cool, thanks for having taken the time to go through our
documentation and examples. I'm interested to know what attracted you
in RIFE? Why did you decide that it might be suitable for you? I'm
asking this since it's very interesting to know what newcomers think
of the project, people usually don't stay 'new' very long, so it's
difficult to get that kind of information ;-)
> After watching the tutorials and getting my feet wet, reading some
> material on the web comparing RIFE to other frameworks, a recurring
> theme was that at first glance things are not what they seem, you
> must use it. So that is what I am trying to do.
Good call! This is what I said to many people already, without using
it you'll never experience RIFE for what it is. Just reading and
trying to imagine how it would work will just make it a lot harder
and slower to get up to speed. Once you start using it, a lot just
falls into place and feels natural.
> I have spent most of my spare time this last week trying to
> understand RIFE by reading and watching, now I am trying to build a
> simple web-app starting with the crud jumpstart. Anyhow, I feel like
> a dunce and that right now, the beauty and simplicity of the
> framework that is evident aside, I am just missing something.
Thanks for the compliments. I hope my answers above give you some
insight.
> Are there any training courses available for RIFE?
No, there are no formally organized courses for RIFE. I started
writing one, but realized that for the little demand, writing a full
course with training materials, class exercises, etc. etc. is not
economically viable and probably a waste of time. I think that I can
make better use of my free time to improve the framework. Anyway, if
you have questions, feel free to ask them here. We'll try to help you
out.
> I own an RIA (no, not a rich internet application ;-) ), but a
> Registered Investment Advising firm. I would like to develop some
> custom applications for the web. I am a small start up, and have
> limited resources. I know that I am eventually going to need an
> outside developer. Still, I also want to know the process in depth
> so I can develop some small pieces on my own and choose the framework
> that makes the most sense, not the just one that is easiest to find a
> developer.
That's a brave attitude and it makes a lot of sense when you're not a
big company. The more established solutions are generally a good idea
if you need to be able to hire a lot of developers easily and want
them to already know the technology. It also makes it a lot easier to
replace one person by another on the team.
In a small company, you need all the help you can get to achieve
results quickly and be able to reuse your efforts as much as
possible. This is exactly why I created RIFE seven years ago, since
I'm basically a one-man web development company that hires friends
when I need more hands on the job. The people you will eventually
hire will be an integral part of your company and generally not
easily replaceable. Them learning a framework will be a small effort
for good developers. The most important part is that they still use a
framework and not just code in their corner. That fact by itself
makes it possible, in the unlikely even of them quitting or so, to
have a well structured code-base that someone else can sink his teeth
in.
> After all the searching, I very much would like to choose RIFE.
Thanks for the confidence :-)
> Anyhow, I apologize for the long winded question and introduction, I
> usually try to figure it out before I post, so this is the first post
> on any mailing list. Like I said, I feel like I am just missing
> something, so I thought I would ask.
Hope my replies got you further along, don't hesitate to ask more
questions if the need arises.
Best regards,
Geert
--
Geert Bevin
Terracotta - http://www.terracotta.org
Uwyn "Use what you need" - http://uwyn.com
RIFE Java application framework - http://rifers.org
Music and words - http://gbevin.com
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