Re: WebObjects 4.5 to 5.x migration: benefits, experiences, advices

I have converted a number of projects from 4.5 to 5.x over the  
years.  Most recently, I have converted three of them this year!   
That was tidying up a couple of remaining internal systems, and one  
customer system that was Java.

Most of the the conversions I have done have been from Java, because  
it was pretty obvious for a long time before the release of 5.0 that  
Apple would be going that route, so we wrote all WO apps in Java  
unless there was a strong reason not to, for at least a couple of  
years before 5.0.

The conversion process isn't too hard, given well written code.   
However, there are some amazing messes that can be created through  
the old ObjC-Java bridge; I won't go into them, but you'll find out  
soon enough if you are going to suffer from them.

5.0 was basically unusable, and 5.1 wasn't much better.  5.2 was the  
first 5.x release that I considered feasible to deploy with.

As for performance, I'll just say that it is 'adequate', and by that  
I mean that I don't see any significant worsening of performance for  
my applications; it could conceivably be much better.  I don't have  
any problems with stability, but then I didn't with 4.5, either.

For Chuck:

yes, Java is more annoying to program than ObjC, but there are much  
worse environments out there.  I feel the benefit of Java when, for  
instance, they added in a basic regex package in 1.4, and the many  
open source packages that you can use with it.

Paul

On 1 Jun 2005, at 18:44, Chuck Hill wrote:

>
> On Jun 1, 2005, at 10:37 AM, Francis Labrie wrote:
>
>
>> Hi,
>>
>>
>> Chuck Hill wrote:
>>
>>> It's been a few years, but I don't think that WO is more stable  
>>> or manageable now than it was in 4.5 days.  In fact, I would say  
>>> that it is less stable and manageable.  Still on OS X 10.3 with  
>>> WO 5.2.3 it is quite OK.  I don't recall any real speed problems  
>>> or benefits in converting to Java.  I do recall that it took me  
>>> longer to write Java code to achieve the same functionality.
>>>
>>
>>
>> So you are referencing WebObjects 4.5 modules coded in Objective- 
>> C, isn't it?
>>
>>
> Yes.  I'd forgotten that some people code in Java when they are not  
> forced to.  :-P
>
>
>
>> Our customer runs Java coded WebObjects 4.5 applications and  
>> frameworks. I think the combination of JVM 1.1.8 and the Java to  
>> Objective-C bridge is far slower and less stable than pure  
>> Objective-C. Did you migrate such Java WO 4.5 to WO 5? If it's the  
>> case, did you feel better performance and stability?
>>
>>
> I think there was one, but I don't recall how bad it was.  But if I  
> was using Java in 4.5 I would RUN to 5.2.3!
>
>
> -- 
> Practical WebObjects - a book for intermediate WebObjects  
> developers who want to increase their overall knowledge of  
> WebObjects, or those who are trying to solve specific application  
> development problems.
> http://www.global-village.net/products/practical_webobjects
>
>
>
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