5 ms·

WebObjects Overview (2001) [pdf]

xmodem 3y ago
My second job was working for a small WebObjects consultancy in 2008. They developed bespoke line-of-business applications for small companies. Having the complete stack - from the HTML templating through to the ORM - provided by one vendor and designed to work together made development faster than anything I've worked with since. It's a shame the cost was too high for too long, and even when Apple made it free, they never open sourced it.
- twoodfin 3y ago
  Steve loved WebObjects. Trawl around YouTube and you can find some of his enthusiastic demos from the late NeXT era. In one, IIRC, he builds an entire web store from scratch in about 15 minutes. But his message on returning to Apple was all about focus. Apple was not going to try to be a web middleware company, so they used the tech where they could benefit from it internally (and did so for a loooong time) and that was that. Late ‘90s Steve didn’t only put bullets in the heads of technologies (Newton, OpenDoc) that he didn’t like.
- SoftTalker 3y ago
  Powerbuilder was (I guess it still exists) sort of that way. Not as sophisticated as WebObjects but for throwing together CRUD screens for business functions it was pretty good. One way to do things, you didn't really have to stop and think "how am I going to build this." Sort of like framing a house with dimensional lumber.
- scarface_74 3y ago
  > They developed bespoke line-of-business applications for small companies. Having the complete stack - from the HTML templating through to the ORM - provided by one vendor and designed to work together made development faster than anything I've worked with since. How is that different then .Net?
  - jonhohle 3y ago
    It was the 90s. (Not OPs story, but WebObjects availability)
  - xmodem 3y ago
    I worked with .NET as well around the same time, and in my opinion it never quite achieved the same level of integration as WebObjects. It also had quite a high price-of-entry until Visual Studio Express editions were released in 2005. I don't have any experience with modern .NET/MVC specifically but modern approaches in general shy away from the decisions that made WebObjects so good because they do tend to hit nasty scalability limits.
  - pjmlp 3y ago
    It predates .NET for about 10 years.
miniwark 3y ago
I am not sure why this stuff is posted now, but as someone who still need to use WebObjects at work because of a legacy product, we use instead Project Wonder: https://github.com/wocommunity/wonder https://github.com/wocommunity/wonder https://wiki.wocommunity.org/ https://wiki.wocommunity.org/ Because Wonder is more or less patched & maintained while WebObjects is in abandonware state since 2008 (and officially since 2016).
- arthurcolle 3y ago
  What legacy product do you support that depends on WebObjects...?
  - miniwark 3y ago
    It's a niche ERP. Sorry i will not say more to keep my privacy. The editor is in the process to rewrite it with Spring & AngularJS frameworks, but it will still take years to do so.
pininja 3y ago
I wasn't even a programmer back in 2001, but flipping through this book shows how certain concepts endure, even as technology evolves. It's a bit like the snake eating its tail - even as we move on, we find ourselves revisiting tried approaches.
pjmlp 3y ago
WebObjects and Distributed Objects Everywhere, are two Objective-C projects that eventually influenced how JEE came to be, yet another connection between Java and its Objective-C influences.
ksec 3y ago
Some say it is still better than today's Ruby Rails / Laravel in terms of productivity. And if it was open sourced at the time the world would have been very different. All we know is, it's called WebObject.
KingOfCoders 3y ago
My mind was blown when I've seen WebObjects in 2001. We were using XML/XSLT at that time to render web pages and plain servlets.
rileyphone 3y ago
Fun fact: WebObjects was the most expensive product Apple has ever sold, at $50000. It managed to keep NeXT alive after the hardware business collapsed
- dbbk 3y ago
  Adjusted for inflation perhaps. But the last Intel Mac Pro definitely went above that.
  - Someone 3y ago
    At $53,799, not much, according to https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2019/12/10/21003636/apple-mac-pro-price-most-expensive-processor-ram-gpu https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2019/12/10/21003636/...
mhd 3y ago
Ah, WebObjects, one of the sad "dead ends" of web tech, not because of being technically obsolete, but because the world moved to different stacks… I'd put ColdFusion, AolServer and Seaside in the same category.
- j45 3y ago
  WebObjects ran the website of the nhl for a long time It’s a tad ironic to see todays modern tad rediscovering the use of presentation templates much like WebObjects, ColdFusion and others quietly did for a long time and were ostracized for.
- coldcode 3y ago
  I did WO/EO for several years until 2001 including the USPS Postmaster app, and it was incredibly productive. This was before JS took over everything, but I can't ever recall being able to do so many client/server web apps with so little effort. Sure the tooling was sometimes lame (ProjectBuilder was a precursor to Xcode) but Objective-C at the time was amazing compared to all other web programming languages. I think WO was far easier to develop in than today's complex web stack, but clearly serving the simpler need of that time. It wouldn't be useful today.
- the_third_wave 3y ago
  ColdFusion, may it remain buried for good. I was forced to use it in the 90's and was struck by how much more work it was to get something sensible up and running with it compared to using Perl. I finally got them to ditch it and life was good - or at least better.
- pjmlp 3y ago
  Its spirit lives on Jakarta EE and Spring.
jason_slack 3y ago
I worked at a university and we used WedObjects for a lot of project. I still believe that it could be around today and competing with the best "stacks" available. Limiting factors would be price and deployment options. But alas, it wasn't viewed in the light by everyone and other "stacks" became more popular.
jamesfinlayson 3y ago
Page 39 has a simple code example. I wasn't expecting Java.
gmac 3y ago
I was working on BBC News Online shortly before it launched in 1997. That was WebObjects-based, and it seemed really powerful and really nicely designed.

My second job was working for a small WebObjects consultancy in 2008. They developed bespoke line-of-business applications for small companies. Having the complete stack - from the HTML templating through to the ORM - provided by one vendor and designed to work together made development faster than anything I've worked with since. It's a shame the cost was too high for too long, and even when Apple made it free, they never open sourced it.

twoodfin 3y ago
Steve loved WebObjects. Trawl around YouTube and you can find some of his enthusiastic demos from the late NeXT era. In one, IIRC, he builds an entire web store from scratch in about 15 minutes. But his message on returning to Apple was all about focus. Apple was not going to try to be a web middleware company, so they used the tech where they could benefit from it internally (and did so for a loooong time) and that was that. Late ‘90s Steve didn’t only put bullets in the heads of technologies (Newton, OpenDoc) that he didn’t like.
SoftTalker 3y ago
Powerbuilder was (I guess it still exists) sort of that way. Not as sophisticated as WebObjects but for throwing together CRUD screens for business functions it was pretty good. One way to do things, you didn't really have to stop and think "how am I going to build this." Sort of like framing a house with dimensional lumber.
scarface_74 3y ago
> They developed bespoke line-of-business applications for small companies. Having the complete stack - from the HTML templating through to the ORM - provided by one vendor and designed to work together made development faster than anything I've worked with since. How is that different then .Net?
- jonhohle 3y ago
  It was the 90s. (Not OPs story, but WebObjects availability)
- xmodem 3y ago
  I worked with .NET as well around the same time, and in my opinion it never quite achieved the same level of integration as WebObjects. It also had quite a high price-of-entry until Visual Studio Express editions were released in 2005. I don't have any experience with modern .NET/MVC specifically but modern approaches in general shy away from the decisions that made WebObjects so good because they do tend to hit nasty scalability limits.
- pjmlp 3y ago
  It predates .NET for about 10 years.

miniwark 3y ago

I am not sure why this stuff is posted now, but as someone who still need to use WebObjects at work because of a legacy product, we use instead Project Wonder: https://github.com/wocommunity/wonder https://github.com/wocommunity/wonder https://wiki.wocommunity.org/ https://wiki.wocommunity.org/ Because Wonder is more or less patched & maintained while WebObjects is in abandonware state since 2008 (and officially since 2016).

arthurcolle 3y ago
What legacy product do you support that depends on WebObjects...?
- miniwark 3y ago
  It's a niche ERP. Sorry i will not say more to keep my privacy. The editor is in the process to rewrite it with Spring & AngularJS frameworks, but it will still take years to do so.

pininja 3y ago

I wasn't even a programmer back in 2001, but flipping through this book shows how certain concepts endure, even as technology evolves. It's a bit like the snake eating its tail - even as we move on, we find ourselves revisiting tried approaches.

pjmlp 3y ago

WebObjects and Distributed Objects Everywhere, are two Objective-C projects that eventually influenced how JEE came to be, yet another connection between Java and its Objective-C influences.

ksec 3y ago

Some say it is still better than today's Ruby Rails / Laravel in terms of productivity. And if it was open sourced at the time the world would have been very different. All we know is, it's called WebObject.

KingOfCoders 3y ago

My mind was blown when I've seen WebObjects in 2001. We were using XML/XSLT at that time to render web pages and plain servlets.

rileyphone 3y ago

Fun fact: WebObjects was the most expensive product Apple has ever sold, at $50000. It managed to keep NeXT alive after the hardware business collapsed

dbbk 3y ago
Adjusted for inflation perhaps. But the last Intel Mac Pro definitely went above that.
- Someone 3y ago
  At $53,799, not much, according to https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2019/12/10/21003636/apple-mac-pro-price-most-expensive-processor-ram-gpu https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2019/12/10/21003636/...

mhd 3y ago

Ah, WebObjects, one of the sad "dead ends" of web tech, not because of being technically obsolete, but because the world moved to different stacks… I'd put ColdFusion, AolServer and Seaside in the same category.

j45 3y ago
WebObjects ran the website of the nhl for a long time It’s a tad ironic to see todays modern tad rediscovering the use of presentation templates much like WebObjects, ColdFusion and others quietly did for a long time and were ostracized for.
coldcode 3y ago
I did WO/EO for several years until 2001 including the USPS Postmaster app, and it was incredibly productive. This was before JS took over everything, but I can't ever recall being able to do so many client/server web apps with so little effort. Sure the tooling was sometimes lame (ProjectBuilder was a precursor to Xcode) but Objective-C at the time was amazing compared to all other web programming languages. I think WO was far easier to develop in than today's complex web stack, but clearly serving the simpler need of that time. It wouldn't be useful today.
the_third_wave 3y ago
ColdFusion, may it remain buried for good. I was forced to use it in the 90's and was struck by how much more work it was to get something sensible up and running with it compared to using Perl. I finally got them to ditch it and life was good - or at least better.
pjmlp 3y ago
Its spirit lives on Jakarta EE and Spring.

jason_slack 3y ago

I worked at a university and we used WedObjects for a lot of project. I still believe that it could be around today and competing with the best "stacks" available. Limiting factors would be price and deployment options. But alas, it wasn't viewed in the light by everyone and other "stacks" became more popular.

jamesfinlayson 3y ago

Page 39 has a simple code example. I wasn't expecting Java.

gmac 3y ago

I was working on BBC News Online shortly before it launched in 1997. That was WebObjects-based, and it seemed really powerful and really nicely designed.