Hi, I''ve started reading some Java books. Gasp! What makes website development with Java so bad? I haven''t looked at Struts but I''m reading about Hibernate. Compared to ActiveRecord, Hibernate seems like some extra typing to explicitly define the model fields, getters and setters. I know that these are things that you can do in ActiveRecord when things get complicated but generally it is not necessary. More agility since the DDL and ORM don''t duplicate. It that the main reason we hate* Java? What are all these XML situps I''ve read about? Is that a Struts issue? Thanks, Peter *I realize we don''t hate Java.
i don''t *hate* java because i never learned it enough to use. that''s why i liked php for so long -- you could step into it with no knowledge and start using it for the web, improving as you go. whenever i looked at java, i felt like i needed to know ALL of it before i could begin to use it. Peter Michaux wrote:>Hi, > >I''ve started reading some Java books. Gasp! What makes website >development with Java so bad? I haven''t looked at Struts but I''m >reading about Hibernate. Compared to ActiveRecord, Hibernate seems >like some extra typing to explicitly define the model fields, getters >and setters. I know that these are things that you can do in >ActiveRecord when things get complicated but generally it is not >necessary. More agility since the DDL and ORM don''t duplicate. It that >the main reason we hate* Java? What are all these XML situps I''ve read >about? Is that a Struts issue? > >Thanks, >Peter > >*I realize we don''t hate Java. >_______________________________________________ >Rails mailing list >Rails@lists.rubyonrails.org >http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails > > >
Hating Java is an individual attitude. I do not hate it at all and I think it will be around for some time. But: I consider Ruby (and btw. also Perl and Python) as superior to Java as languages. They are more expressive, more flexible and more dynamic. You have to write a lot in Java to cover Java''s complexity, but you should write to advance your application. Still, this does no way nullify the usefulness of Java for a long time to come: - There are a lot of legacy apps in Java. So they are extended in Java, apps around them are done in Java and apps done by the same team of Java-guys are also done in Java. For quite a time to come. (just put Cobol for Java and you get my point). - Java has quite a decent performance in some cases. Java-guys claim it to be as good as C++, but I have my doubts about that. Anyway, well done Java-apps can still outperform Ruby-apps. Be very careful with this one though. The danger is that you drown in the inherent Java-complexity and don''t get a handle for optimizing performance, where in the case of a Ruby app you have much more time to provide quality, because development itself is much more productive. If performance is such an issue, I would consider writing critical parts of the application in C and combine this with Ruby. There might be a chance to beat the 100%-pure Java-app in terms of both development time and performance. But this has to be proven by experience. - Java has very good libraries. Ruby does not have this now, but off course, rubyforge.org is growing rapidly. - Java has a lot of "infrastructure", frameworks etc. - Java is known by many guys, training for Java is relatively cheap and easily available. - Java-stuff is well documented. For some Ruby-issues it is still hard to get books or even online-documentation. - Nobody has ever been fired for swimming with the well established main stream. As time goes on, some of these will fade away, but Java will retain at least some kind of Cobol-like importance in the long run. Best regards Karl
Karl Thanks for the reply. I''ve been thinking some of these things too. On 2/18/06, Karl Brodowsky wrote:> - Java has very good libraries. Ruby does not have this now, but off course, > rubyforge.org is growing rapidly.This is what is making me think Java could be faster for some application development. Ruby may be a nicer language to program in but you have to develop libraries along the way. - Peter
Peter Michaux wrote:> This is what is making me think Java could be faster for some > application development. Ruby may be a nicer language to program in > but you have to develop libraries along the way.This can happen. If you have a library that is already 80% of your app, using java with that library becomes efficient.
I attended some Hibernate, Spring, and EJB3 presentations the other day and had to hit the caffeine to keep from nodding off - slide after slide of XML configurations. Compared to Ruby and Rails, Java just seems so tedious and so much more work. .Net too. Joe -- Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.
Peter Michaux wrote:> This is what is making me think Java could be faster for some > application development. Ruby may be a nicer language to program in > but you have to develop libraries along the way.One language is better for some situations... news at 11:-) The reason I prefer Ruby, Tcl, Python, Perl et al. is that they "scale down": http://dedasys.com/articles/scalable_systems.html And Rails happens to hit a sweet spot - it scales down quite well, without being ''disorganized'' or messy. At least that''s been my experience so far. -- David N. Welton - http://www.dedasys.com/davidw/ Linux, Open Source Consulting - http://www.dedasys.com/
Joe wrote:> I attended some Hibernate, Spring, and EJB3 presentations the other day > and had to hit the caffeine to keep from nodding off - slide after slide > of XML configurations. Compared to Ruby and Rails, Java just seems so > tedious and so much more work. .Net too.That''s exactly the point. But don''t forget: There are a lot of guys that have gone far to learn all of this stuff. A huge investment. So they will find a lot of good reasons to remain on the Java-side, just in order to justify this investment. (c#/dotnet too, off course)
"*I realize we don''t hate Java." Au contraire! 1.) wrist unfriendly 2.) wrist unfriendly some of my little petty side annoyances though are constantly recompiling and an IDE bigger than X-Window and slower than a slug. in general though, java gives you a language then you add on spring, hibernate, maybe some JCA or JBI or some other componentization system and yada yada yada. its a big fractured mess of standards. rails is nice because its just rails. all on top of ruby, which is wrist friendly.
"As time goes on, some of these will fade away, but Java will retain at least some kind of Cobol-like importance in the long run." Someone''s been rocking the ITConversations. =] Java is pretty much at an evolutionary dead end. Its in many ways the culmination of C++; wrapped with garbage collection, sandboxing & metadata. But where Java can go now, what new and innovative could be derived from java? Not much,Java has basically grown to be all it can be. There''s nothing wrong with the mainstream. Sometimes its just more interesting on the edge though. Eventually, those rebels who are just never happy with the status quo will eventually see pop eat itself, sure enough as Cobol eventually was replaced with Java. One culmination replaced with another.
On 2/18/06, Peter Michaux <petermichaux@gmail.com> wrote: Compared to ActiveRecord, Hibernate seems> like some extra typing to explicitly define the model fields, getters > and setters. I know that these are things that you can do in > ActiveRecord when things get complicated but generally it is not > necessary>From my experience, Hibernate/etc does do all the things AR does, butAR does it *by default*. It takes time to match up every layer, decode error messages from typos and then test your results....you are constantly jumping from one layer to another everytime you make a change to enforce the mapping. With anything, you will learn faster if you can run simple tests, put scaffolding together, and just play! As someone else mentioned, I felt like you had to know it *all* to be able to do anything in Java. Not to mention you have a different language for the View, JSTL whereas erb is Ruby. - Nic -- - Nic
Karl Brodowsky wrote:> Joe wrote: >> I attended some Hibernate, Spring, and EJB3 presentations the other day >> and had to hit the caffeine to keep from nodding off - slide after slide >> of XML configurations. Compared to Ruby and Rails, Java just seems so >> tedious and so much more work. .Net too. > > That''s exactly the point. > > But don''t forget: There are a lot of guys that have gone far to learn > all > of this stuff. A huge investment. So they will find a lot of good > reasons > to remain on the Java-side, just in order to justify this investment. > (c#/dotnet too, off course)Yeah, but Java''s come a long way and I think it''s continuing to improve. Technologies like Hibernate, Struts, Spring, et al ease a lot of the pain, but I think it''ll be many years, if ever, before it approaches the succinctness and ease of Ruby and Rails. Another reason (mentioned several times at the presentations) for staying with Java/.Net is the professional support, which companies like JBoss offer. Joe -- Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.
> > > Another reason (mentioned several times at the presentations) for > staying with Java/.Net is the professional support, which companies like > JBoss offer. > >Agreed. I''m looking forward a company like Zend or JBoss to offer commercial support for Rails application. This definitely would push the enterprise adoption of Rails. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://wrath.rubyonrails.org/pipermail/rails/attachments/20060218/c7e44821/attachment.html
On 2/18/06, Matthew Fowle <rektide@gmail.com> wrote:> > Java is pretty much at an evolutionary dead end. Its in many ways the > culmination of C++; wrapped with garbage collection, sandboxing & > metadata. But where Java can go now, what new and innovative could be > derived from java? Not much,Java has basically grown to be all it can > be. >That sounds like a little bit of a lack of imagination. The language (java) just got enums, annotations (attributes), generics, iterators, etc. C# is getting implicitly typed variables, lambda expressions, query expressions, expression trees. To me it seems like they are really trying to bridge the productivity gap (or.. expressional gap) between static and dynamic languages. Rob -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://wrath.rubyonrails.org/pipermail/rails/attachments/20060218/51810e4a/attachment.html
Bruce Tate in his very interesting (and highly controversial) O''Reilly book _Beyond Java_ makes the case for alternatives. It''s a quick and easy read, not to mention a good history of how we got here. Frankly, his book is how I first heard about RoR. The biggest problem I have with Java these days is that it''s so large I never feel like I know enough to do a decent job. There''s Java itself, of course, then Ant, JUnit, all the J2EE specs (EJB, JMS, JSTL, JNDI, JDBC, ...), app server deployment and administration, frameworks (Hibernate, Struts -- now Shale, JSF, Spring, Tapestry)... The list just goes on and on. I''ve spent years in it and still use it all the time, but RoR is so much simpler for simple problems that it makes development fun again. :) It''s also a "full stack" solution -- everything I need is there. That''s the basics, anyway. See the book for lots more. Ken -- Kenneth A. Kousen, Ph.D. President Kousen IT, Inc. http://www.kousenit.com ken.kousen@kousenit.com -----Original Message----- From: rails-bounces@lists.rubyonrails.org [mailto:rails-bounces@lists.rubyonrails.org] On Behalf Of Peter Michaux Sent: Saturday, February 18, 2006 12:26 PM To: rails@lists.rubyonrails.org Subject: [Rails] I forgot. Why do we hate* Java? Hi, I''ve started reading some Java books. Gasp! What makes website development with Java so bad? I haven''t looked at Struts but I''m reading about Hibernate. Compared to ActiveRecord, Hibernate seems like some extra typing to explicitly define the model fields, getters and setters. I know that these are things that you can do in ActiveRecord when things get complicated but generally it is not necessary. More agility since the DDL and ORM don''t duplicate. It that the main reason we hate* Java? What are all these XML situps I''ve read about? Is that a Struts issue? Thanks, Peter *I realize we don''t hate Java. _______________________________________________ Rails mailing list Rails@lists.rubyonrails.org http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails
Ken Kousen wrote:> The biggest problem I have with Java these days is that it''s so large I > never feel like I know enough to do a decent job. There''s Java itself, of > course, then Ant, JUnit, all the J2EE specs (EJB, JMS, JSTL, JNDI, JDBC, > ...), app server deployment and administration, frameworks (Hibernate, > Struts -- now Shale, JSF, Spring, Tapestry)... The list just goes on and > on. I''ve spent years in it and still use it all the time, but RoR is so > much simpler for simple problems that it makes development fun again. :) > It''s also a "full stack" solution -- everything I need is there. >I recently switched from Java to Rails. I find Java is fantastic for desktop client (only with SWT toolkit mind you) and network server development. As far as web development goes, I''ve tried many times, using many diverse frameworks, but it''s just a mess of acronyms that no one really knows how to fully use. In addition to this, every year or so, a new bunch of acronyms joins the party offering so much more that no one really understands. Struts is terrible. Don''t even attempt to go there. I think one of the major drawbacks to web development in Java is that it''s all bolted on. Rails on the other hand, is designed from the ground up to be what it is, and it does it very well. Guys make large investments into Java because that is what it takes to learn it, a very large investment. It is unproductive and just not worth it. Dan
On Saturday, February 18, 2006, at 9:26 AM, Peter Michaux wrote:>*I realize we don''t hate Java.It is ok... as long as I don''t have to code in it. 7 years was too much -- Now I need a long rehab: http://www.cafepress.com/javarehab -- Posted with http://DevLists.com. Sign up and save your time!
I read somewhere that the number of bugs per line of code is reasonably constant, across all programming languages, for a given programmer/team. In other words, if a team is going to average e.g. 5 bugs per 1000 lines of Java code, they''ll also have ~5 bugs per 1000 lines of Ruby/Python, C#, assembler, ... code. Given that''s true, and it kind of "feels" true, the fact that RoR accomplishes many tasks with a fraction of the code it would take for an equivalent Java app makes the "bug-free-ness" of RoR a compelling factor. I know my Ruby/Rails code has many less simple-but-obscure bugs than my Java code, but that may be because I''m a really bad Java coder. As an example, personally I''ve found that, regardless of the language used, if a given block of code spans > 1 screen, I start to get many more typos in that block - just being able to view an entire block of code onscreen without scrolling seems to almost eliminate an entire range of errors for me. Regards Dave M. On 19 Feb 2006 04:45:28 -0000, Roustem Karimov <devlists-rubyonrails@devlists.com> wrote:> > On Saturday, February 18, 2006, at 9:26 AM, Peter Michaux wrote: > > >*I realize we don''t hate Java. > > It is ok... as long as I don''t have to code in it. > > 7 years was too much -- Now I need a long rehab: > http://www.cafepress.com/javarehab > > > > -- > Posted with http://DevLists.com. Sign up and save your time! > _______________________________________________ > Rails mailing list > Rails@lists.rubyonrails.org > http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails >
On 2/18/06, Dan Harper <dan@danharper.org> wrote:> Struts is terrible. Don''t even attempt to go there. I think one of the > major drawbacks to web development in Java is that it''s all bolted on. > Rails on the other hand, is designed from the ground up to be what it > is, and it does it very well.Used properly, Struts is far from terrible. It''s actually quite a good tool. It also has a very steep learning curve. Used poorly by people who haven''t made it up this curve yet, it can certainly produce some terrible results. I''ve been building enterprise web apps (for lack of a better term) in Java for about 6 years now. I''m also always trying to learn something new, which is where Ruby comes in for me. It seemed more exciting than learning EJB 3.0 and Java 1.5. I''ll eventually have to pick these up, but for now I''m having a good time with RoR. -- James
You know it wasn''t always like that with Java. Back in the day things were very simple and great to use. I know since I was one of the first people to write a web application in Java. I actually used CGI before servlets came out, then switched to servlets since they were better. It just started happening that vendors would create these JCP "committees" and create standards that helped them sell their products. I remember getting really pissed off when I worked on the uPortal project and realized that a recent version of the Servlet API removed almost all management interfaces. You can *still* access deprecated APIs in servlets but the vendors removed these management interfaces with a vengeance. I think that was the first example of the so called "community process" being used to the advantage of the vendors. Some people I mention this to have said it has no "reality" to it, but take a look at the current state of things. I have an IBM product at work called INS. We were pretty much forced to use it. This thing requires a ton of IBM software to run. It uses WEA, WebSphere, WebSphere Portal, maybe 10 Lotus products we have no clue about, and then finally INS. It''s got to be like a cool million in software and hardware to run this thing. When you call to get help for it they have to read an org chart to tell you who to call next (since nobody at IBM can actually just solve your problem). We had problems installing the 5.x release and IBM had to send out a core INS developer from England and several of their WebSphere gurus and still couldn''t install the thing according to the documentation. It finally took them about a week to get it installed cleanly. It also requires Windows because of a bunch of features we don''t even use. When we run the application it has to keep a cmd window open on the desktop and we can''t log the administrator out. Now that''s enterprise! What does it do? It reads RSS feeds and sends e-mail notifications. I''m not kidding or exaggerating here. That''s all it does. They claim it does more but when you ask for these other features IBM says, "Oh, you need to write a connector for that." It took our developers almost 1 month to just *use* the RSS connector it already has. Writing a new connector took almost another 3 months. One of our team members had a great quote about INS, "It''s like you''re buying the elephant to watch it''s tail wag." The best part of this story? We asked if just the INS part ran on Linux without all the other crap. IBM told us it didn''t and that we had to buy the whole package. I later found out that IBM actually did sell just INS to another company in EU that wasn''t bundled and ran on Linux just fine. They just used INS as a means of selling a ton of crap we didn''t need. This is why there''s a backlash against Java. I don''t think it''s the language as much as how vendors took Java''s popularity and started bundling everything they possibly can or setting up the "standards" so their products are in a prime position to take the market. This disregard for the end implementers and using the JCP to sell their stuff just eventually set the stage for something simpler to come along and take them on. Anyway, that''s my thoughts on it. Talk amongst yourselves. :-) Zed A. Shaw http://www.zedshaw.com/ On 2/18/06 12:26 PM, "Peter Michaux" <petermichaux@gmail.com> wrote:> Hi, > > I''ve started reading some Java books. Gasp! What makes website > development with Java so bad? I haven''t looked at Struts but I''m > reading about Hibernate. Compared to ActiveRecord, Hibernate seems > like some extra typing to explicitly define the model fields, getters > and setters. I know that these are things that you can do in > ActiveRecord when things get complicated but generally it is not > necessary. More agility since the DDL and ORM don''t duplicate. It that > the main reason we hate* Java? What are all these XML situps I''ve read > about? Is that a Struts issue? > > Thanks, > Peter > > *I realize we don''t hate Java. > _______________________________________________ > Rails mailing list > Rails@lists.rubyonrails.org > http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails
Offtopic: Hello Zed. I maintain a weblog about web development in Uzbekistan and I want to translate and post your story there. I think, it will be very helpfull for our local managers and web developers. So, do you mind if I do this? On 2/19/06, Zed Shaw <zedshaw@zedshaw.com> wrote:> You know it wasn''t always like that with Java. Back in the day things were > very simple and great to use. I know since I was one of the first people to > write a web application in Java. I actually used CGI before servlets came > out, then switched to servlets since they were better. > > .... > > Anyway, that''s my thoughts on it. Talk amongst yourselves. :-) > > Zed A. Shaw > http://www.zedshaw.com/ >-- Anton
On 2/19/06 10:05 AM, "Anton Kovalyov" <anton@kovalyov.net> wrote:> Offtopic:Hello Zed. I maintain a weblog about web development in Uzbekistan> andI want to translate and post your story there. I think, it will be very> helpfull for our local managers and web developers.So, do you mind if I do> this?Go ahead. I work for the NYC Department of Correction so I''m allowed through American free speech laws to talk about my daily work and the products I use as a "public worker". In the US since tax payers pay my salary they have a right to read and learn about my daily work and how the DOC operates. Also I''ve never signed an NDA and that message has no trade secrets. All the statements are true according to my observations and I can backup everything using IBM''s own support request system (we put in a lot of tickets) and other interactions via e-mail with IBM. There are also about 10 people who were connected to that project who will probably back up what I''ve said. Basically, feel free to publish it as something I''ve said but don''t claim it''s your statements or else they might go after you. Zed A. Shaw http://www.zedshaw.com/
On 2/19/06, Zed Shaw <zedshaw@zedshaw.com> wrote:> > Go ahead. >Thanks.> > Basically, feel free to publish it as something I''ve said but don''t claim > it''s your statements or else they might go after you. >Sure. -- Anton
Heh, Zed''s story makes me think of Java like the tax code: it''s complicated, convoluted, and boring enough to keep the tax professionals in business and obscure just how much you''re really paying. Also pointed out at the Java presentations is that many of these open-source technologies (like Hibernate) are simply teasers for companies'' (like JBoss) full-fledged, proprietary, for-purchase software. Joe -- Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.
Joe wrote:> Also pointed > out at the Java presentations is that many of these open-source > technologies (like Hibernate) are simply teasers for companies'' (like > JBoss) full-fledged, proprietary, for-purchase software.Let''s stay fair: JBoss is a company, but their product (also called JBoss) is OpenSource (LGPL).
On 2/19/06, Karl Brodowsky <listen@brodowsky.com> wrote:> Let''s stay fair: JBoss is a company, but their product (also called JBoss) is OpenSource (LGPL).No kidding. To say that JBoss doesn''t support open source software shows a complete lack of understanding about this topic. It would make about as much sense as someone deciding that Linux is terrible and proprietary because Red Hat offers paid support services. -- James
James Ludlow wrote:> On 2/19/06, Karl Brodowsky <listen@brodowsky.com> wrote: >> Let''s stay fair: JBoss is a company, but their product (also called JBoss) is OpenSource (LGPL). > > No kidding. To say that JBoss doesn''t support open source software > shows a complete lack of understanding about this topic. It would > make about as much sense as someone deciding that Linux is terrible > and proprietary because Red Hat offers paid support services. > > -- JamesLOL, complete? Actually, they said it was IBM. Joe -- Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.
James Ludlow wrote:> On 2/19/06, Karl Brodowsky <listen@brodowsky.com> wrote: >> Let''s stay fair: JBoss is a company, but their product (also called JBoss) is OpenSource (LGPL). > > No kidding. To say that JBoss doesn''t support open source software > shows a complete lack of understanding about this topic. It would > make about as much sense as someone deciding that Linux is terrible > and proprietary because Red Hat offers paid support services. > > -- JamesI''ll let the Java group - which consists of many enterprise developers - know that you''ll be speaking at the next meeting to inform them on just how wrong their assertion was. Joe -- Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.
Sun is Evil :) On 2/19/06, Joe <joe@yahoo.com> wrote:> > James Ludlow wrote: > > On 2/19/06, Karl Brodowsky <listen@brodowsky.com> wrote: > >> Let''s stay fair: JBoss is a company, but their product (also called > JBoss) is OpenSource (LGPL). > > > > No kidding. To say that JBoss doesn''t support open source software > > shows a complete lack of understanding about this topic. It would > > make about as much sense as someone deciding that Linux is terrible > > and proprietary because Red Hat offers paid support services. > > > > -- James > > I''ll let the Java group - which consists of many enterprise developers - > know that you''ll be speaking at the next meeting to inform them on just > how wrong their assertion was. > > Joe > > -- > Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/. > _______________________________________________ > Rails mailing list > Rails@lists.rubyonrails.org > http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails >-------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://wrath.rubyonrails.org/pipermail/rails/attachments/20060220/6a312dda/attachment.html
Zed,
You''re right.
But if you avoid the JCP standards, Java can still be fun! There are
lots of nice open source libraries for almost anything that work the way
you expect them to work. Still, I must admit that having fun is a lot
easier in RoR.
But, this is a RoR list, so lets not stray too much :)
Regards,
Erik.
Zed Shaw wrote:> You know it wasn''t always like that with Java. Back in the day
things were
> very simple and great to use. I know since I was one of the first people
to
> write a web application in Java. I actually used CGI before servlets came
> out, then switched to servlets since they were better......
>
On 18 Feb 2006, at 19:01, Karl Brodowsky wrote:>> This is what is making me think Java could be faster for some >> application development. Ruby may be a nicer language to program in >> but you have to develop libraries along the way. > > This can happen. If you have a library that is already 80% of your > app, > using java with that library becomes efficient.Except that then you have to maintain it. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://wrath.rubyonrails.org/pipermail/rails/attachments/20060220/2672eac4/attachment.html
On 2/20/06, Derek Chesterfield <dez@mac.com> wrote:> Except that then you have to maintain it.My options are 1) writting and maintaining huge long JavaScript files to create a rich GUI 2) Using Java Swing libraries which I won''t have to maintain
On Mon, Feb 20, 2006 at 07:39:43AM -0800, Peter Michaux wrote: } On 2/20/06, Derek Chesterfield <dez@mac.com> wrote: } } > Except that then you have to maintain it. } } My options are } 1) writting and maintaining huge long JavaScript files to create a rich GUI Fortunately, other people have designed good JavaScript GUI libraries. Since they are mostly interacting with HTML and CSS, the well-written ones are pretty easy to understand, modify, and maintain. } 2) Using Java Swing libraries which I won''t have to maintain ...but suck greatly to develop against. Ugh. I have spent entirely too much of my life convincing the Swing API to produce the results I desired, and that doesn''t count the time and effort involved in using the worst syntactic sugar ever (anonymous classes) to implement callback code blocks. --Greg
On 2/20/06, Gregory Seidman <gsslist+ror@anthropohedron.net> wrote:> On Mon, Feb 20, 2006 at 07:39:43AM -0800, Peter Michaux wrote: > > } 1) writting and maintaining huge long JavaScript files to create a rich GUI > > Fortunately, other people have designed good JavaScript GUI libraries. > Since they are mostly interacting with HTML and CSS, the well-written ones > are pretty easy to understand, modify, and maintain.Something that can do multiple drag and drop with auto scrolling, resizable spreadsheet columns, menu bar, context menu, directory tree, ...?
On Mon, Feb 20, 2006 at 11:11:02AM -0800, Peter Michaux wrote: } On 2/20/06, Gregory Seidman <gsslist+ror@anthropohedron.net> wrote: } > On Mon, Feb 20, 2006 at 07:39:43AM -0800, Peter Michaux wrote: } > } > } 1) writting and maintaining huge long JavaScript files to create a rich GUI } > } > Fortunately, other people have designed good JavaScript GUI libraries. } > Since they are mostly interacting with HTML and CSS, the well-written ones } > are pretty easy to understand, modify, and maintain. } } Something that can do multiple drag and drop with auto scrolling, } resizable spreadsheet columns, menu bar, context menu, directory tree, } ...? A lot of that is out there. The rest should be written. I wrote a context menu with relative ease, and repurposing it for a menu bar would be pretty simple. A directory tree is no problem, and I know of one that is available commercially. I don''t know what you mean by "multiple drag and drop" unless you mean selecting multiple items then dragging them; in that case, it''s pretty easy. Autoscrolling is a bit of work, but definitely doable. I''m pretty sure a data table or two are out there, and I would be surprised if you can''t resize its columns. If you really can''t find any one of those, I''d be happy to develop them for a small fee and release them under the LGPL. --Greg
Hi Gregory, Thanks for the responses. Yes, probably most of it is out there in the DHTML world but I''m getting frustrated that it is scattered, incomplete, coded with different styles, and full of work arounds for browsers. Dealing with CSS is not exactly a pleasure with all the different browser compliance levels. It all just seems like a mess. Perhaps the solution to the mess will be a for-pay company dedicated to making a cohesive DHTML library that is coded in a uniform style. Peter
On 2/20/06, Peter Michaux <petermichaux@gmail.com> wrote:> Hi Gregory, > > Thanks for the responses. > > Yes, probably most of it is out there in the DHTML world but I''m > getting frustrated that it is scattered, incomplete, coded with > different styles, and full of work arounds for browsers. Dealing with > CSS is not exactly a pleasure with all the different browser > compliance levels. It all just seems like a mess. > > Perhaps the solution to the mess will be a for-pay company dedicated > to making a cohesive DHTML library that is coded in a uniform style.Well, there is Flex (or there will be soon), but I doubt that''s what you''re looking for. http://labs.macromedia.com/> Peter > _______________________________________________ > Rails mailing list > Rails@lists.rubyonrails.org > http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails >-- Bill Guindon (aka aGorilla) The best answer to most questions is "it depends".
Hi Bill, The Flex business looks like it has a nice interface. Maybe it is Rails for Flash. I''m going to read more about it. I bet you''ve started thinking "this Peter guy never gets anything done on store.rb". Well it seems like it is true but I want to build a good product. Especially for those who have to admin the store. I don''t want to build osCommerce or Miva for Rails. I wonder what you think of the options for building a backend. 1) Spend the time to build the DHTML libraries necessary for a rich gui interface. 2) Write a Java app that interfaces with the rails site by web services. Peter On 2/20/06, Bill Guindon <agorilla@gmail.com> wrote:> On 2/20/06, Peter Michaux <petermichaux@gmail.com> wrote: > > Hi Gregory, > > > > Thanks for the responses. > > > > Yes, probably most of it is out there in the DHTML world but I''m > > getting frustrated that it is scattered, incomplete, coded with > > different styles, and full of work arounds for browsers. Dealing with > > CSS is not exactly a pleasure with all the different browser > > compliance levels. It all just seems like a mess. > > > > Perhaps the solution to the mess will be a for-pay company dedicated > > to making a cohesive DHTML library that is coded in a uniform style. > > Well, there is Flex (or there will be soon), but I doubt that''s what > you''re looking for. > http://labs.macromedia.com/ > > > Peter > > _______________________________________________ > > Rails mailing list > > Rails@lists.rubyonrails.org > > http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails > > > > > -- > Bill Guindon (aka aGorilla) > The best answer to most questions is "it depends". > _______________________________________________ > Rails mailing list > Rails@lists.rubyonrails.org > http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails >
On 2/20/06, Peter Michaux <petermichaux@gmail.com> wrote:> Hi Bill, > > The Flex business looks like it has a nice interface. Maybe it is > Rails for Flash. I''m going to read more about it. > > I bet you''ve started thinking "this Peter guy never gets anything done > on store.rb". Well it seems like it is true but I want to build a good > product. Especially for those who have to admin the store. I don''t > want to build osCommerce or Miva for Rails.Understandable, but they''re both pretty successful, so they can serve as guides.> I wonder what you think of the options for building a backend. > 1) Spend the time to build the DHTML libraries necessary for a rich > gui interface. > 2) Write a Java app that interfaces with the rails site by web services.I''d pick 1. Must admit, I am watching Flex since it could make a pretty powerful admin.> Peter > > > > On 2/20/06, Bill Guindon <agorilla@gmail.com> wrote: > > On 2/20/06, Peter Michaux <petermichaux@gmail.com> wrote: > > > Hi Gregory, > > > > > > Thanks for the responses. > > > > > > Yes, probably most of it is out there in the DHTML world but I''m > > > getting frustrated that it is scattered, incomplete, coded with > > > different styles, and full of work arounds for browsers. Dealing with > > > CSS is not exactly a pleasure with all the different browser > > > compliance levels. It all just seems like a mess. > > > > > > Perhaps the solution to the mess will be a for-pay company dedicated > > > to making a cohesive DHTML library that is coded in a uniform style. > > > > Well, there is Flex (or there will be soon), but I doubt that''s what > > you''re looking for. > > http://labs.macromedia.com/ > > > > > Peter > > > _______________________________________________ > > > Rails mailing list > > > Rails@lists.rubyonrails.org > > > http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails > > > > > > > > > -- > > Bill Guindon (aka aGorilla) > > The best answer to most questions is "it depends". > > _______________________________________________ > > Rails mailing list > > Rails@lists.rubyonrails.org > > http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails > > > _______________________________________________ > Rails mailing list > Rails@lists.rubyonrails.org > http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails >-- Bill Guindon (aka aGorilla) The best answer to most questions is "it depends".
Karl Brodowsky
2006-Feb-21 01:06 UTC
Apps combining Java and Ruby (Re: [Rails] I forgot. Why do we hate* Java?)
> 2) Write a Java app that interfaces with the rails site by web services.Sorry, but this feels just wrong. If you develop part of your application in Java and part of your application in something else, why do you want to use Java in the part where it is really causing a lot of trouble and very expensive to use? Swing is *very* powerful. No doubt about that. But it is very complex and you will need a lot of effort to tame this beast. You will need a lot more effort than you expect to maintain the Java-installations on your client PCs, unless these machines are intranet and kind of under your control. If you do go for Java-Webstart with Swing, I think you should go for Java on the server as well. That saves you at least some of the pain with the inter-language-interfaces and you can just go for RMI, EJB, JMS etc. as communcations mechanism, which is much easier to tame than Soap or something like that. And it saves you from implementing the classes that go over the network twice. No way can you collect the benefit of RoR, if you combine it with a Java-Swing-GUI. If you need such a rich GUI which can''t be done with HTML, just get used to having to pay a high price for the development. And go for it. It''s ok, if you are honest to your self. It''s not ok if you think you can reproduce any of the success stories in terms of enormous productivity of RoRs-project with this combination. That will not work. The combination of Ruby and Java that I actually do see is like this: Build components providing a service using Java (or C or C++). Think of these running on the DB-Server or Application server or so, close to the database. Then have a web-application in Ruby that connects to these components to get stuff done. This does make sense if you have to do operations that are extremely resource hungry so that Ruby would (today) be too slow. You pay your price but sometimes it is needed. Would you see that Ruby on Rails would support this kind of architecture already or is there still some way to go? Best regards, Karl
Alex Zhukov
2006-Feb-21 01:35 UTC
Apps combining Java and Ruby (Re: [Rails] I forgot. Why do we hate* Java?)
I think I''ve missed the start of this topic. What was the original web app? e-commerce? Anyway, in my experience all fat GUI clients to manage a website suck :) And it''s not only the language or libraries that they''re built in or even the app itself. Building a desktop GUI client is more expensive than building a web management interface and you will have to deal later with all kind off end user problems - crashes, different platforms, different setups, different runtime versions, hard-to-reproduce segfaults or memory leaks (yeah, even in managed java or dot net code). And then you will have to keep the clients up to date or maintain backwards compatibility in the protocols. It''s a real pain in the ass, been there - not good. IMO modern browsers can offer decent user experience with AJAX & stuff. And if you really need more advanced UI features - take a look at mozilla XUL. It''s a kind of ajax on steroids - you can still use HTML & CSS for layout and interface and use advanced XUL widgets if necessary. And it can still be a web app served like an html page from the server. -- best regards, Alex Zhukov baron.pampa@gmail.com On Feb 21, 2006, at 4:07 AM, Karl Brodowsky wrote:>> 2) Write a Java app that interfaces with the rails site by web >> services. > > Sorry, but this feels just wrong. > > If you develop part of your application in Java and part of your > application in something else, why do you want to use Java > in the part where it is really causing a lot of trouble and > very expensive to use?
Derrick Spell
2006-Feb-21 05:10 UTC
Apps combining Java and Ruby (Re: [Rails] I forgot. Why do we hate* Java?)
> The combination of Ruby and Java that I actually do see is like this: > Build components providing a service using Java (or C or C++). > Think of these running on the DB-Server or Application server or so, > close to the database. Then have a web-application in Ruby that > connects to these components to get stuff done. This does make sense > if you have to do operations that are extremely resource hungry > so that Ruby would (today) be too slow. You pay your price but > sometimes it is needed. > > Would you see that Ruby on Rails would support this kind of > architecture > already or is there still some way to go? > > Best regards, > > KarlThis is certainly a valid architecture. The Ruby language has a _very_ nice C extension library. (And having wrestled with the Perl equivalent, I can''t stress the "very" hard enough). What you would do is develop your C service, wrap it into a Ruby library using the extension api, and then require ''my_cool_library'' in your rails app. -Derrick Spell "[The Perl source is] an interconnected mass of livers and pancreas and lungs and little sharp pointy things and the occasional exploding kidney." -Nat Torkington
Kenneth Lee
2006-Feb-21 08:00 UTC
Apps combining Java and Ruby (Re: [Rails] I forgot. Why do we hate* Java?)
These days, I''ve been leaning towards favoring some of the more flexible languages/frameworks for the user-facing portions of applications and more formal/rigid frameworks for integration with other enterprise resources. If we had time and budget, I''d love to redo our user interfaces with Ruby/PHP/Ajax and have that talk to our Weblogic infrastructure, which integrates w/ our enterprise message bus. Too many of our apps have been J2EE front-to-back. While I appreciate the stricter typing, well-defined framework, it also pains me to hear users complain about how long it takes to do UI changes. However, I haven''t quite figured out where exactly to draw the line... On 2/20/06, Derrick Spell <derrickspell@cdmplus.com> wrote:> > The combination of Ruby and Java that I actually do see is like this: > > Build components providing a service using Java (or C or C++). > > Think of these running on the DB-Server or Application server or so, > > close to the database. Then have a web-application in Ruby that > > connects to these components to get stuff done. This does make sense > > if you have to do operations that are extremely resource hungry > > so that Ruby would (today) be too slow. You pay your price but > > sometimes it is needed. > > > > Would you see that Ruby on Rails would support this kind of > > architecture > > already or is there still some way to go? > > > > Best regards, > > > > Karl > > This is certainly a valid architecture. The Ruby language has a > _very_ nice C extension library. (And having wrestled with the Perl > equivalent, I can''t stress the "very" hard enough). What you would > do is develop your C service, wrap it into a Ruby library using the > extension api, and then require ''my_cool_library'' in your rails app. > > > -Derrick Spell > > "[The Perl source is] an interconnected mass > of livers and pancreas and lungs and little > sharp pointy things and the occasional > exploding kidney." -Nat Torkington > > > > _______________________________________________ > Rails mailing list > Rails@lists.rubyonrails.org > http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails >
Karl Brodowsky
2006-Feb-21 09:17 UTC
[Rails] combining C and Ruby (Re: Apps combining Java and Ruby)
Derrick Spell wrote:> This is certainly a valid architecture. The Ruby language has a _very_ > nice C extension library. (And having wrestled with the Perl > equivalent, I can''t stress the "very" hard enough). What you would do > is develop your C service, wrap it into a Ruby library using the > extension api, and then require ''my_cool_library'' in your rails app.I have heard it multiple times and this is something that can be useful. The restriction is that it is based on C and it is really a drawback against C++ for many things. I mean C++ used *carefully* and *in a pragmatic way*. I want to have Strings, Hash Tables, Arrays with dynamic length and numbers with arbitrary precision that can be used for arithmetic with +,-,*,... C does not provide this in a easy to use and general way. I know that C++ can become a pain when it is done overly dogmatic by creating tons of useless object just to be object oriented. (For being fully object oriented I use Ruby, not C++.) Then again, the bridge for calling C++ from C is not trivial to my understanding. So: for small stuff or stuff existing in C the C-Api of Ruby is great. For bigger stuff it might be considered to have a look at the C/C++-bridging. But again, this is one approach. The other one is to run the C++-app as a daemon or service or so and to connect to it from Ruby using Corba, RPC, XML-RPC, Soap or your homegrown TCP/IP-communication.
Karl Brodowsky
2006-Feb-21 09:27 UTC
[Rails] drawing the line between Ruby and Java (Re: Apps combining Java and Ruby)
Kenneth Lee wrote:> These days, I''ve been leaning towards favoring some of the more > flexible languages/frameworks for the user-facing portions of > applications and more formal/rigid frameworks for integration with > other enterprise resources. > > If we had time and budget, I''d love to redo our user interfaces with > Ruby/PHP/Ajax and have that talk to our Weblogic infrastructure, which > integrates w/ our enterprise message bus. Too many of our apps have > been J2EE front-to-back. While I appreciate the stricter typing, > well-defined framework, it also pains me to hear users complain about > how long it takes to do UI changes. > > However, I haven''t quite figured out where exactly to draw the line...I see two approaches: 1. leave everything that is done by EJB in place and replace everything that is done by Servlets and JSP by Ruby and Rails. If the EJB-stuff is pretty static or is almost completely bound to Java for some good reasons that is the way to go. 2. have a look at the EJBs as well. What can be done better in Ruby, what can be done better in Java, what has to be done in Java? Move some of that stuff to Ruby as well. If some parts of the business logic keep changing rapidly and these parts are not extremely performance critical, that might be a good way to go. You have to invest a lot into architecture and documentation in this case, because you do not follow the obvious line of 1. I have to add something concerning Java: A. I said EJB, but it does not have to be EJB. You can also use Spring, Hybernate or a standalone Java-App. I just assumed it is EJB in your case already. B. If you do a lot of numeric calculations, Java has the *huge* disadvantage of obfuscationg the code by the necessity to write a = (b.multiply(c).add(d.multiply(e)) instead of a = b*c+d*e (unless you can work with Java''s primitive types). This really hurts and causes a lot of bugs. But you can possibly get a preprocessor for Java that allows you to write the code in a more natural way even for BigInteger, Rational etc.