Re: [xwt-users]Shouldn't the server be as easy.

 
> OK, we may have different experiences in this
> regard. I find the basic
> Java stuff easy, it makes the harder stuff possible,
> and there's lots of
> work already done.

  No the are not terribly difficult, but it can still
be much easier and faster. Have you ever used the
PeopleSoft development tools? Although they use a
completly diffrent infrastructure and backend, are
proprietary and, in my opinion not the best coded
around the result is somewhat similar. If not havn't
used them then the best way to illustrate is to take
the examples of scripting langauges. Why use them?
usually becuase they provide a higher level of
abstraction, a consistent api, and this is not
develope, compile, debug cycle. Applied to Polar this
is Polar will have a much higher level abstract for
common business application tasks, a consistent and
straitforward API, and there will be no comile debug
cycle, just a save and run/test.




> Neither ASP nor PHP are client side.


  It depends on what you consider client side and
server side. I think of PHP and ASP as client side
becuase they are really only good for generating a UI,
in this case HTML. There is no way in h*** I would
consider using either of those for business logic,
which is what I tend to think of in server side. But
technically you are right they are not client side. 
 
> 
> I'm confused here... I may not be understanding you
> right. Eclipse and
> VS are not client-side technologies...

 They are clients for the developer, although they are
standalone. You don't deploy your apps to eclipse or
VS you deploy them to some type of web application
server (at least in the context of this discussion).
  

 In any case its only the IDE that this applies to
which is a very small part of the overall goal.

> OK, so I'm now *definately* confused. What you
> describe is pretty much
> what you can do with PHP using any number of DAV/FTP
> aware editors;
> phpMOLE seems nice enough, and there are others
> whose name escapes me
> right now. PHP as a client... as a consumer of
> webservices, which then
> generates HTML or somesuch? Unless this script would
> run client-side...
> but then the backend wouldn't really matter.


Ok I am sorry, I need to lay this out more clearly.
Its very clear in my mind, I guess thats clouding my
explanation to others.

 There are two main parts that I am working on at the
moment.

 1) A java based service framework (XML-RPC to start)
in which the services are scripted in Javascript. The
javascript accomplishes it goals by manipulating an
API provided by the framework. The scripts should be
remotly accessable for development.

 2) An XWT based client that allows the development
and maintenance of the above mentioned javascript
based services.

 At the moment I don't care what the end user of those
services are. XWT, PHP, Java,  I don't care. My main
goal here is to provide a fast, simple, distributed,
easy means of create services for consumption by
something. 


  
> I usually test my stuff straight from Eclipse using
> the tomcat plugin.

 Yup me too, thats the developer testing phase.
  
> A lot of these steps can be automated if you so
> wish, but I catch your
> drift.

 Yup, I agree.
 
> 
> A lot of this could be covered with the BSF.

 Could be, yup. I don't consider that the best
solution, however.
 
> OK. Our environments differ enough that quick-deploy
> is less of an issue over having stuff like j2ee
> available. 

 Mostly becuase you don't need J2EE for ninty percent
of the standard business applications. In my opinion,
EJB in particular sucks. 

 My main goal is not so much quick deploy, but all
around easy of development and deployment. The ease of
deployment is just a nice side benifit. The main goal
is the ease of development in general and distributed
development in particular.


> I can still not entirely visualize 
> how using a non-standard development environment 
> would yield enough of a benefit to make a move, 
> but that would be entirely particular
> to my situation.

 If you change non-standard to non-mainstream you
would be more accurate. Its an open source project
(LGPL) and the standards will be public. It may not be
standardized by a large standards body, but then again
niether is java. 

 In any case, developers do this all the time. Take
for example my current project at work. I have two
years in this project and in that time I have built
abstractions for all of the common tasks. In a very
real sense I am using non-standard development and
deployment tools. All I am planning to do with Polar
is take the concepts I have picked up in the last six
years or so, package them as APIs and make them
available to a scripting environment. In the end it
should mean that I will be able to get an order of
magnitude increase in productivity, bucause all of the
hard stuff is done. Its the same reason I use the OS
tcp stack instead of writing my own.



> *grin* there's been loads of OT discussion. 
> I think I have all the info
> I need and will just see where Polar goes, 
> but this list is pretty flexible in what 
> is on-topic. We were at least still talking
> webservices.

Oh ok, lol.

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!
http://sbc.yahoo.com