Friday, February 12, 2010
Click is now a top level Apache project
Congrats to the Click team. My interest in doing Java web apps is low since I have mostly been using Rails for the last three years.
That said, Click hits a sweet spot with a good templating system and model super classes for pages, forms, tables, etc. Because I might be using Google AppEngine for more projects, I may need to use Java so I have just read through the documentation and code samples for the latest version that is compatible with AppEngine.
That said, Click hits a sweet spot with a good templating system and model super classes for pages, forms, tables, etc. Because I might be using Google AppEngine for more projects, I may need to use Java so I have just read through the documentation and code samples for the latest version that is compatible with AppEngine.
Labels: Java, web applications
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
Web 3.0: not just Semantic Web and Linked Data, also interop on languages and platforms
I am working on a 'Web 3.0' book so I am having a lot of fun and extending my own knowledge on linked data and other Semantic Web technologies. However, when thinking about the evolution of the web, I don't think that distributed semantically enabled data stores are anywhere near to the whole story. The evolution of the web now coincides with a very large change in our world-wide society: a move to what I call the "great frugality" of value/production based society and economic systems. While I look forward to a world wide shift towards increased emphasis of local infrastructure (definitely food production, and when possible light manufacturing), the evolving web is what can still keep us connected both to friends and colleagues with the same interests and to potential business partners, no matter where we live.
A big part of a shift towards a value/production based Web 3.0 that combines material for human readers and linked business software systems is the reduction of cost through open source software. It is clear that when using and building highly distributed systems on the web platform that we need to take advantage of multiple platforms (Java, Ruby/Rails, PHP, Pyhton/Django, etc.) I noticed that IBM is releasing a new version of Project Zero that provides an integrated Java and PHP deployment platform. My personal platforms of choice are Rails and Server side Java so I prefer Sun's Glashfish/JRuby/Rails/Java bundle.
The point that I am making is that platform choice is often guided by what combination of major open source web application frameworks best fit our business needs. A secondary concern is how we merge and integrate applications like (for example) PHP based SugarCRM, Java Business Intelligence stacks, and custom Ruby on Rails applications.
The final piece of the "great frugality" is learning to live with and accept open source licenses like the GPL and AGPL that to a large degree forces the sharing of infrastructure software. This can be an expensive mistake: failure to take advantage of cost reduction from open software infrastructure, while gaining either competitive advantages or at least efficiency and profitability due to business processes and knowledge.
A big part of a shift towards a value/production based Web 3.0 that combines material for human readers and linked business software systems is the reduction of cost through open source software. It is clear that when using and building highly distributed systems on the web platform that we need to take advantage of multiple platforms (Java, Ruby/Rails, PHP, Pyhton/Django, etc.) I noticed that IBM is releasing a new version of Project Zero that provides an integrated Java and PHP deployment platform. My personal platforms of choice are Rails and Server side Java so I prefer Sun's Glashfish/JRuby/Rails/Java bundle.
The point that I am making is that platform choice is often guided by what combination of major open source web application frameworks best fit our business needs. A secondary concern is how we merge and integrate applications like (for example) PHP based SugarCRM, Java Business Intelligence stacks, and custom Ruby on Rails applications.
The final piece of the "great frugality" is learning to live with and accept open source licenses like the GPL and AGPL that to a large degree forces the sharing of infrastructure software. This can be an expensive mistake: failure to take advantage of cost reduction from open software infrastructure, while gaining either competitive advantages or at least efficiency and profitability due to business processes and knowledge.
Labels: semantic web, web applications
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Scala and the Lift web applicaton framework
I have been playing with Scala for a while - playing is the correct word to use since I am waiting to see how popular the language becomes. I think that Scala will possibly end up being 'the better Java' for the JVM, but for my business I prefer not learning and using another language that is not main stream (my almost 25 years of using Lisp professionally has sometimes been a hassle because of the unavailability of other skilled Lisp developers and a smaller ecosystem, and I don't want to devote a lot of time to mastering another language that may end up being "on the fringe").
That said, Scala is a very nice language that has two non-language things going for it: very efficient runtime performance with OK memory use and that it runs on the JVM. Scala looks to be a good language for AI development and its interactive console adds some of the advantages of interactive bottom up development - a style I like to use when working in Lisp, Ruby, or Python.
Until this morning I have only read about the Scala Lift web framework, but after reading Vivek Pandey's blog about running Lift I gave it a try this morning. The maven setup and default web application construction was all very smooth, and the generated code was interesting to read. I also like the way Scala unit tests work and the debug modes supporting both an interactive Scala console and running with an embedded jetty web server. Everything works very well together and the entire system has a polished feel to it.
That said, Scala is a very nice language that has two non-language things going for it: very efficient runtime performance with OK memory use and that it runs on the JVM. Scala looks to be a good language for AI development and its interactive console adds some of the advantages of interactive bottom up development - a style I like to use when working in Lisp, Ruby, or Python.
Until this morning I have only read about the Scala Lift web framework, but after reading Vivek Pandey's blog about running Lift I gave it a try this morning. The maven setup and default web application construction was all very smooth, and the generated code was interesting to read. I also like the way Scala unit tests work and the debug modes supporting both an interactive Scala console and running with an embedded jetty web server. Everything works very well together and the entire system has a polished feel to it.
Labels: Scala, web applications
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Google Gears: a sea change for web applications?
I thought that Adobe Apollo might have hit a sweet spot for allowing developers to create hybrid desk top and web applications. I think that Google may have hit a sweeter spot with Gears. Gears installs as a FireFox add-on and uses the SQLite database to store data locally on your file system. Each site that you visit that is 'Gears enabled' causes a pop up permissions dialog to appear - I recommend being careful of which web sites you allow to use the Gears add-on. I have reviewed the developers' documentation and it looks straight forward to set up and a Javascript SQL database API makes it easy to use SQL in your Javascript.
Labels: AJAX, Javascript, web applications
Saturday, April 21, 2007
How much does web framework choice really matter?
Based on experience with consulting jobs developing web applications using several Java frameworks, Ruby on Rails, and Portable AllegroServe with WebActions (open source Common Lisp frameworks), I believe that choice of framework is less important than:
I have been investing a fair amount of time learning Erlang this year and the ErlyWeb framework (that uses the high performance Yaws Erlang web server) looks very good for both interactive development and distributed deployment. For web applications that map well to Erlang, ErlyWeb allows Erlang to be the development language of choice, but again the important choice is programming language selection rather than web framework.
- Programming language: choose a language that both fits the application domain and has good library support for your application
- Data modeling: while I believe in interactive bottom up development, spending time up front getting object models 'right' makes development easier
- Object persistence: there are lots of good choices (prevalence, object relational mapping for relational databases, distributed memory only, etc.) but choose a scheme that makes sense both for development and deployment
I have been investing a fair amount of time learning Erlang this year and the ErlyWeb framework (that uses the high performance Yaws Erlang web server) looks very good for both interactive development and distributed deployment. For web applications that map well to Erlang, ErlyWeb allows Erlang to be the development language of choice, but again the important choice is programming language selection rather than web framework.
Labels: Erlang, Java, Lisp, Ruby, web applications
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