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I will be saying this until I die, but WebObjects, originally created in Objective-C and then ported to Java, made Java web app development fun back in the days

by lr 15y ago

I will be saying this until I die, but WebObjects, originally created in Objective-C and then ported to Java, made Java web app development fun back in the days (late '90s early '00s) when people were killing themselves with Struts, Servlets, and J2EE. Even in its current, unsupported form, WebObjects runs circles around most web frameworks. Given that WO is not supported by Apple, I am really glad to see frameworks like Grails (awesome framework) and Play! gaining traction in the mainstream! So, yes, Java web app development should not be hard, doesn't have to be hard, and, actually, was never really hard at all (if you used the right framework in the first place).

simonw 15y ago
The WebObjects sites I've encountered in the wild all seem to have completely garbage URLs - is that a requirement of WebObjects, part of the culture surrounding it or just an unfortunate coincidence?
- jballanc 15y ago
  Unfortunate coincidence. WebObjects was created a good decade before your average programmer thought of REST being related to the web and not a nap. Similarly, template generation in WebObjects relied on layout tables, because it was created in a time before CSS. Ultimately, this is what did it in, but Enterprise Objects...oh, man! I still haven't met an ORM as capable or well designed as Enterprise Objects!
  - lr 15y ago
    Steve introduces Enterprise Objects Framework (EOF) at about 25 minutes in: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j02b8Fuz73A http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j02b8Fuz73A EOF was one of the key components of making NeXT such a powerful OS, and why it was so heavily used on Wall Street. When they created WebObjects, they, of course, put EOF behind it, and yes, it is by far the most impressive ORM I have ever used. Thankfully, a well known WO developer, Andrus Adamchik, has developed Cayanne using the same principals behind EOF: http://cayenne.apache.org/ http://cayenne.apache.org/
- Torn 15y ago
  Play's URL mappings seem very close to Django's (i.e. restful and sensible): http://www.playframework.org/documentation/1.2.3/routes http://www.playframework.org/documentation/1.2.3/routes

by lr 15y ago

simonw 15y ago

The WebObjects sites I've encountered in the wild all seem to have completely garbage URLs - is that a requirement of WebObjects, part of the culture surrounding it or just an unfortunate coincidence?

jballanc 15y ago
Unfortunate coincidence. WebObjects was created a good decade before your average programmer thought of REST being related to the web and not a nap. Similarly, template generation in WebObjects relied on layout tables, because it was created in a time before CSS. Ultimately, this is what did it in, but Enterprise Objects...oh, man! I still haven't met an ORM as capable or well designed as Enterprise Objects!
- lr 15y ago
  Steve introduces Enterprise Objects Framework (EOF) at about 25 minutes in: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j02b8Fuz73A http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j02b8Fuz73A EOF was one of the key components of making NeXT such a powerful OS, and why it was so heavily used on Wall Street. When they created WebObjects, they, of course, put EOF behind it, and yes, it is by far the most impressive ORM I have ever used. Thankfully, a well known WO developer, Andrus Adamchik, has developed Cayanne using the same principals behind EOF: http://cayenne.apache.org/ http://cayenne.apache.org/
Torn 15y ago
Play's URL mappings seem very close to Django's (i.e. restful and sensible): http://www.playframework.org/documentation/1.2.3/routes http://www.playframework.org/documentation/1.2.3/routes