Well, WWDC is almost done, I’m waiting for the last session on Level 3 of Moscone, near one of these really big windows.
It’s a really big pain to not being able to write here all that I have learned about WebObjects (for those of you who don’t know, WWDC sessions are covered by NDAs).
Someone asked on the WebObjects mailing list how do we classify the WO news, from A to C. Well, I can say, A++++! I think the future of WebObjects will be susprising. Apple showed us some stuff that, in my opinion, is probably almost as revolutionary as the original WebObjects framework itself. But we still will have to wait.
The only thing I can say more is: if you are (considering) doing web application development, don’t be stupid – learn WebObjects NOW. Currently, it’s the most powerful web application development environment by far. And in some future time this advantage will be an order of magnitude higher.
Hi,
Could you give some advice on where to start, some easy way to get a point of the beautiness in it… I have a couple projects in mind and I would like to see if WO could help :)
Cumprimentos ;)
wHaTEvEr
(o mesmo do forum rnl, com uns addons no nome :P)
Hi!
That is a hard question, and it was highly discussed in WOWODC and WWDC. We are aware that currently there is a very hard learning curve (or, as we call it, learning cliff) because information is not in one place, and some of the available information is outdated.
Resulting from all that discussion, a site was made, http://gettingstartedwithwo.codeferous.com/ that tries to put everything in the same place.
Personally, I highly recommend you to:
1) Buy an used copy of the “Professional WebObjects 5.0 With Java by Thomas Termini et al. Published by Wrox Press, Inc.” book. The first 6 or 7 chapters are really good, and they give you a really nice introduction to WebObjects (if you cannot find any more copies, send me an email).
2) Subscribe the Apple WO-Dev mailing list on the Apple mailing lists site, lists.apple.com, I think.
3) Some months later, buy Chuck’s book.
WebObjects is not a blog-oriented learn-to-be-a-web-developer-in-7-days kind of framework. Like Cocoa, it’s very complex technology, and requires you to learn a bunch of new concepts, understand them, and understand how to work with them. You will learn and learn for years, and feel that there is still a lot to learn. That’s normal!
But the upside of this is that you will also learn that WO is an amazingly well thinked and implemented framework that, after more than 10 years since it’s introduction, still it the most advanced and powerful one. It’s Cocoa for the Web. Many mac folks belive that Cocoa is, by far, the most advanced desktop development environment in the world. That just don’t know that they have the most advanced web development environment right there on their hard drives.
Why is it the best? I think you will learn by yourself! :)
Hmm, this sounds like some positive news about WO. Actually the first positive I have heard of in many WWDC’s. This sounds surprising to me. Should I really have visited WWDC 2007 since several WWDC’s with significant decline of WO-relevant news/tracks?
I would really, really be surprised to see a sudden uprise of activity for a product, which actually only recently lost its prominent Web-Presence on the Apple Website an is now listed as one of many technologies around Mac OS X.
Sorry, but at the moment I have difficulties to believe your overly positive outbreak of “A++++” ratings for some NDA. I do hope that this is not due to some reality distortion field which has something to do with “Oh yeah, we have an SDK for the iPhone, its caled WebObjects”.
Be I will see and hear about this soon, anyway. So thanks for this delicious appetizer. ;-)
Hi Helge!
Well, I totally understand your cepticism about the WO news. In your position, I would also have a hard time believing in stuff like “I can’t say why, but the future looks bright”.
That being said, the only thing I can say more is – do believe it! :) Again, I can’t say why, the only way you can get the news is by having someone on your company that went to WWDC and that may tell you about the news without breaking the NDAs.
But there are two things I can add:
- Mr. Pierre Frisch is now the WebObjects team manager at Apple, and he’s really commited to make WebObjects go forward. When you see the 5.4 release notes (which should be comming out shortly, or, if not, they will be public when Leopard ships), you will certainly agree with me. It’s, by far, one of the best updates in many years.
- Usually, before WWDCs, people at the WebObjects Dev mailiing list start to go into “panic mode” because there’s no WWDC sessions scheduled. Everyone says “Oh my god, they have killed it!” and stuff like that. Well, this year, no one said that. Not only that, but WOWODC was made. As far as I know, it’s the only satellite conference taking place related to WWDC. Not even Cocoa or any other topic has that (and, although WWDC is a great conference, there’s always room for more info!). And one of the things that we have decided, still during the WOWODC sunday, was that, next year, WOWODC will be a 2-days conference. There is more than enough information to fill both days.
So, bottom line, the “WO is dead” feeling is a thing of the past. The WO community is more confident than never on WO future. And, as Mr Pierre said many times, Apple, today, right now, DEPENDS on WebObjects. If WO stopped working right now, by work of dark forces, Apple would simply stop.
About the iPhone SDK, well, many people suggested that! :D If by any chance Steve announces that on the next Keynotes, you will certainly hear a huge “YEAHHH!” in the room! :) But, realistic, I think the WO future is good, but well, not THAT good! Althouhg Apple really surprised me on WWDC 2007…
Apple is seriously shooting itself in the foot by NDAing everything. I am a web-applications development manager for a large company, and I just picked up a mac and the iphone dev kit in order to do some hobbyist iPhone development, and saw that there is something called “webobjects” that comes along in the SDK. I google “iphone sdk webobjects” and this page is one of the top results! I’d love to learn about an web application framework, but all the secrecy (and serious lack of public information/community) isn’t going get me excited (or confident) about doing any substantial development using this tool, much less moving my team in the direction of using it professionally.
@Web Developer: I know what you mean. But you also have to take some stuff into consideration:
1) Most Apple technologies are distributed under the very same conditions (Cocoa, iPhone SDK, etc) and that doesn’t stop people from using them professionally and making big money from it.
2) WebObjects is probably the only closed-source Apple technology that is available in nightly builds from Apple’s own servers for free (you don’t have to be an ADC Select or Premier member to access it). This was introduced in WWDC 2008, that’s why I don’t talk about that in this post, as it was written in 2007.
3) WebObjects is alive and well, as it’s the foundation for all the business inside Apple. Almost no dolar enters or leaves Apple without going trough a WebObjects application somewhere in the process. I’m not just talking about the popular AppleStore and iTunes Store, but also about the dozens of internal applications they build on it.
Bottomline, I understand what you say and I also feel it a little, but I don’t see those as strong reasons for not using it. If you think about other technologies you use, you’ll see most of them are in the same or worse situation than WebObjects in what relates to support and roadmap.
What is it and why is it anything special? Why would someone switch to using WO instead of traditional methods?
First of all, it’s hard to define here what “traditional methods” are, because WO is probably oldest that what the vast majority of web developers use today. This doesn’t mean WO is not adapted to today’s needs – on the contrary, it keeps evolving every day, which shows it’s architecture was made to last. For those who believe the age of a technology is an issue, and not an advantage, think about your computer kernel and most of the OS: it’s written in C, a language made decades ago.
Why should you use WO? We could have a very long discussion about that, but for me, it’s mostly about the tools you use adapt to your mindset, and the way you think. I tried a lot of web technologies before, including some “radical” ones, like LISP frameworks, and none of them made sense to me. All of them seemed wrong, poorly built, and above all, in my opinion, their model didn’t seem feet to the purpose. When I saw WO, I saw a framework that was built in the way I think it makes sense. It’s not easy to learn, and it has it’s issues, but all of it makes sense. Just like Cocoa, for the desktop, it’s not something that you can learn and feel confortable with in a few minutes or days, but just like Cocoa, it’s well worth the effort.
So, essentially I use WO because it makes sense to me, because it’s very well tested and mature code, because it’s very fast (today’s JVMs are much, much faster than perl or ruby interpretation), and because it offers very high security out of the box.
Hi,
Now we are just going to welcome 2012. Still we do not hear much from Apple about Webobjects? What is your take on this? What is the scope of WO in your view. Still there are not much support and information regarding WO.
Manzoor: don’t expect anything from Apple. Everything is now handled by the community, and work to extend WebObjects is done by Project Wonder, a quite large open source project that patches and extends WebObjects. For example, the REST framework for WebObjects is part of Project Wonder.
The WebObjects community made it clear last year that the majority wants to continue to use WebObjects and Project Wonder even if Apple have no plans to release any new version of WebObjects. Right now, the focus is on the documentation (the wiki) since this is an area where big improvements have to be made.