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Jobs was entirely wrong about the web, and continues to be. WebObject's big-company focus ($50,000 for a license) is precisely why it is now dead. Meanwhile Per

by Fjslfj 16y ago

Jobs was entirely wrong about the web, and continues to be. WebObject's big-company focus ($50,000 for a license) is precisely why it is now dead. Meanwhile Personal HomePage script (now known as PHP) powers the world's largest website -- the little guy's tools won.

lr 16y ago
WebObjects, dead? Can you please define "dead"? WebObjects powers the iTunes store. I think it is doing just fine generating billions of dollars/year for Apple.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- jfb 16y ago
  I question the asserted numbers. It is a dead technology.
  - rimantas 16y ago
    So it's the dead technology that powrers #1 music seller in US?
    - cubicle67 16y ago
      I think he means dead as a commercial product, not dead as in no longer used
    - vetinari 16y ago
      Yes. There are thousands people in the world speaking Latin, but it is still dead language.
    - jfb 16y ago
      I think I can safely say that I know more about the usage of WebObjects within Apple than (probably) every other poster here, and my knowledge in this area leads to me to one inescapable conclusion: it's a dead technology. HINT: My last job was writing WebObjects software for the aforementioned music store.
      - rimantas 16y ago
        Any hints if Apple intends to replace it with something?
wriq 16y ago
WebObjects was essentially the precursor to the large j2ee app servers such as WebSphere or WebLogic and not a priority at all after the Apple purchase. They moved WO over to Java and dropped the price to $699(IIRC), although by that time no one cared. I can't think of anyone other then Apple that in 2004 used WebObjects. Still, I dont think he was wrong. WO/Enterprise Object Framework was incredibly influential in server side java which I believe is still the most popular 'enterprise' language currently.
bonaldi 16y ago
What WebObjects would have allowed us to do today if it hadn't been left to bitrot was write an app's business logic once, customise the interfaces and have a webapp, Mac app and iPhone app all from the same codebase. They would connect to the same database, and sync seamlessly. You can feel the lack of it every time an iOS developer complains there isn't an out-of-the-box syncing solution. They're all using CoreData (which is a simplified cut-down version of WebObject's EOF); it should be a simple matter just to sync to a Mac app, let alone to a web site. Instead, devs have to learn three different stacks and join them all up manually. Frustrating to watch when you know we've had something better since 1995, and it's sitting neglected. If you see WebObjects as competing with PHP then yes, it absolutely lost. If you see it as creating the cloud 15 years before its time, then it's actually the only contender that comes anywhere close.
- encoderer 16y ago
  "What WebObjects would have allowed us to do today if it hadn't been left to bitrot was write an app's business logic once, customise the interfaces and have a webapp, Mac app and iPhone app all from the same codebase. They would connect to the same database, and sync seamlessly." I think this is pie-in-the-sky just the same way his prediction of being able to write an app in "20% of the time" was. "Write an apps business logic once." I've been developing software for a while now, 10 years, and I've never seen true company-wide (let alone world-wide) code reuse on a massive scale. Yes, there is a lot of code reuse. And yes django and zend framework and RoR are all examples of code reuse. But I've worked with so many entrepreneurs and CEO's who have this same wish: Write it once, Use it everywhere. It just doesn't work that way in practice.
  - bonaldi 16y ago
    Ever actually used WebObjects? Especially in the objective-C days this is exactly what it did. (What became) Cocoa has pervasive MVC all the way through. Turning a WO app into a NS app was a matter of working on the V, as it should be.
    - encoderer 16y ago
cubicle67 16y ago
Jobs was entirely wrong about the web For low values of 'entirely' He's made, in this interview, probably a dozen or more statements about the future of the web. I'd say for many of them bang on, certainly a lot better then most predictions from 15 years ago. As for web objects being dead (as a commercial product), well that's because it's time has passed. Apple made it free years ago and I think even then they it had had its day in the sun. It was, however, a very good framework and powered a number of very large sites, including Dell.
protomyth 16y ago
WebObjects was $50,000 when it was expected to be $50,000. It was running on bigger servers (HP. Sun) when the software on those boxes was very expensive. They dropped the price pretty significantly later when they were bought by Apple.

by Fjslfj 16y ago

lr 16y ago

WebObjects, dead? Can you please define "dead"? WebObjects powers the iTunes store. I think it is doing just fine generating billions of dollars/year for Apple.

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
jfb 16y ago
I question the asserted numbers. It is a dead technology.
- rimantas 16y ago
  So it's the dead technology that powrers #1 music seller in US?
  - cubicle67 16y ago
    I think he means dead as a commercial product, not dead as in no longer used
  - vetinari 16y ago
    Yes. There are thousands people in the world speaking Latin, but it is still dead language.
  - jfb 16y ago
    I think I can safely say that I know more about the usage of WebObjects within Apple than (probably) every other poster here, and my knowledge in this area leads to me to one inescapable conclusion: it's a dead technology. HINT: My last job was writing WebObjects software for the aforementioned music store.
    - rimantas 16y ago
      Any hints if Apple intends to replace it with something?

wriq 16y ago

WebObjects was essentially the precursor to the large j2ee app servers such as WebSphere or WebLogic and not a priority at all after the Apple purchase. They moved WO over to Java and dropped the price to $699(IIRC), although by that time no one cared. I can't think of anyone other then Apple that in 2004 used WebObjects. Still, I dont think he was wrong. WO/Enterprise Object Framework was incredibly influential in server side java which I believe is still the most popular 'enterprise' language currently.

bonaldi 16y ago

What WebObjects would have allowed us to do today if it hadn't been left to bitrot was write an app's business logic once, customise the interfaces and have a webapp, Mac app and iPhone app all from the same codebase. They would connect to the same database, and sync seamlessly. You can feel the lack of it every time an iOS developer complains there isn't an out-of-the-box syncing solution. They're all using CoreData (which is a simplified cut-down version of WebObject's EOF); it should be a simple matter just to sync to a Mac app, let alone to a web site. Instead, devs have to learn three different stacks and join them all up manually. Frustrating to watch when you know we've had something better since 1995, and it's sitting neglected. If you see WebObjects as competing with PHP then yes, it absolutely lost. If you see it as creating the cloud 15 years before its time, then it's actually the only contender that comes anywhere close.

encoderer 16y ago
"What WebObjects would have allowed us to do today if it hadn't been left to bitrot was write an app's business logic once, customise the interfaces and have a webapp, Mac app and iPhone app all from the same codebase. They would connect to the same database, and sync seamlessly." I think this is pie-in-the-sky just the same way his prediction of being able to write an app in "20% of the time" was. "Write an apps business logic once." I've been developing software for a while now, 10 years, and I've never seen true company-wide (let alone world-wide) code reuse on a massive scale. Yes, there is a lot of code reuse. And yes django and zend framework and RoR are all examples of code reuse. But I've worked with so many entrepreneurs and CEO's who have this same wish: Write it once, Use it everywhere. It just doesn't work that way in practice.
- bonaldi 16y ago
  Ever actually used WebObjects? Especially in the objective-C days this is exactly what it did. (What became) Cocoa has pervasive MVC all the way through. Turning a WO app into a NS app was a matter of working on the V, as it should be.
  - encoderer 16y ago

cubicle67 16y ago

Jobs was entirely wrong about the web For low values of 'entirely' He's made, in this interview, probably a dozen or more statements about the future of the web. I'd say for many of them bang on, certainly a lot better then most predictions from 15 years ago. As for web objects being dead (as a commercial product), well that's because it's time has passed. Apple made it free years ago and I think even then they it had had its day in the sun. It was, however, a very good framework and powered a number of very large sites, including Dell.

protomyth 16y ago

WebObjects was $50,000 when it was expected to be $50,000. It was running on bigger servers (HP. Sun) when the software on those boxes was very expensive. They dropped the price pretty significantly later when they were bought by Apple.