It's easier to create something once you know it can be done. WebObjects was first.
I think Tapestry has eclipsed WebObjects in terms of power. Maybe that's just me. Certainly the templating is better, and Tapestry was always designed with the limitations of J2EE clustering in mind. I have ideas to explore that will go beyond what WebObjects or JSF (or Rails) can do. A new, higher-power of expressiveness. I tihnk JSF's approach to supporting multiple UIs is its achilles heel. It demos well, but is very limited. The HTML web model, Ajax model, terminal model, Swing GUI model are very far apart. In each of these cases, to make a useful UI requires very specific control ... what I call "sweathing the pixels". Tapestry has generally succeeded in not getting in the way of sweating those pixles: thus informal parameters and the close affinity between Tapestry components and HTML elements. Talking with other GUI experts, such as Ben Galbraith, its clear that the abstractions already present in Swing (vs., say, SWT or MFC) are already an impediment to creating a useable, compelling, responsive GUI. Adding several new layers of abstraction on top of that, in the form JSF and RenderKits, does not sound like a winner to me. Code reuse works well once outside of the presentation tier, but in the presentation tier, you want and need a very, very fine degree of control. On 8/17/05, Gentry, Michael (Contractor) <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > As smart as HLS is, he wasn't the first to apply MVC techniques to the > web. From what I read in TIA, he was substantially influenced by > WebObjects, which came out in the mid-1990s (yes, over a decade ago) and > was the first web framework (that I know of) to provide MVC, when he > created Tapestry. Of course, Tapestry is open source and WebObjects > isn't (even though WO is now "free"). > > /dev/mrg > > HLS/etc: Please correct me if I'm wrong -- that was just the impression > I got from TIA. > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Jacob Hookom [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Wednesday, August 17, 2005 1:42 AM > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: Choosing Tapestry > > > Don't get me wrong, HLS is a really smart guy for being the first to > come up with Tapestry and applying some of the Swing/Desktop concepts to > something that works on the web. > > Unfortunately, as Java is such a commodity market, other frameworks will > pop up that build off of Tapestry and other ideas; and HLS has been > doing a great job of continuing to drive innovation. > > -- Jacob > > >> A more plausible case is many different UIs, designed differently to > >> fit their medium, sharing the same back end. JSF won't help you with > >> that any more than any other framework. > > > > Are you sure about that one? JSF opens up a horizontal market for > > vendors and > > open source developers such that there's a much higher degree of re- > > use and > > collaboration allowed in the request stack. > > Yes, I am sure. What I'm skeptical about is whether components built > on the JSF model will make good rich GUI apps. The reason one writes > a Swing app is to take advantage of exactly the sorts of things that > JSF abstracts away (e.g. a fully asynchronous event model -- and > please don't try to tell me that JSF has one). I have yet to be > convinced that JSF can actually be used to build a Swing application > that doesn't feel like a usability hoax. > > I am probably ignorant and completely off-base, but discussion isn't > likely to convince me. What's needed is some examples that prove me > wrong. Show me an awesome rich GUI app with a tidy codebase written > with JSF, and I'll be convinced. > > >> In short, none of us have a crystal ball that you don't. > > > > My eight-ball tells me otherwise. > > So I noticed! You are clearly a JSF True Believer. And to your > credit, Facelets are clearly thinking about the developer usability > issues that currently make JSF cumbersome to work with. > > I'm not a true believer in JSF, Tapestry, or any other existing web > framework, and I don't spend much time looking into 8-balls. But on a > practical note, it's worth noting that just a few weeks ago, already > knowing Struts & JSP, I spent four or five days experimenting with > JSF, found it cumbersome and unsatisfying, tried Tapestry instead, > liked it, and chose it for my current project. And even though the > skills I'm acquiring won't help me build telnet applications, I still > somehow manage to sleep soundly at night. > > Cheers, > > Paul > > -- > Jacob Hookom - Minneapolis > -------------------------- > http://hookom.blogspot.com > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > -- Howard M. Lewis Ship Independent J2EE / Open-Source Java Consultant Creator, Jakarta Tapestry Creator, Jakarta HiveMind Professional Tapestry training, mentoring, support and project work. http://howardlewisship.com --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
