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Imagine you are a business programmer, although you have heard of this
exciting new environment called Seaside. You would like to create forms that operate like the ones you do at work such as in Oracle Forms. On further investigation, perhaps you manage to make it through the tutorials. But when you go to do something real, behold you discover that some of the most basic components such displaying a datagrid from rows in a table are missing. Something that you probablydo on at least 50% of your forms in Oracle Next you read the mailing list to see if anyone has a solution to the problem. You discover that some people are decidely against putting anything like that in the core because of their purist inclinations. Others are simply say to go learn one of the javascript libraries and do it that way. This is also a dilema as you don't know which one would be good and this stuff isn't all that understandable to you. You don't know much about html, javascript, css, ajax, etc. and you probably don't want to spend a year figuring it all out. All you want to do is solve problems like the ones you have at work in as straightforward a way as possible. How much further do you think that person is likely to go? _______________________________________________ seaside mailing list [hidden email] http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/seaside |
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Some people are looking into it:
http://seabreeze.heeg.de/ But if you expect the sort of hand holding you get with a commercially backed product, you should look first to Seaside on Cincom Smalltalk. On Wed, Dec 17, 2008 at 1:14 PM, Michael Atkisson <[hidden email]> wrote: Imagine you are a business programmer, although you have heard of this _______________________________________________ seaside mailing list [hidden email] http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/seaside |
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In reply to this post by Michael Atkisson
OK Michael but please understand the fact this community has to prioritize its
limited resources. Seaside is a fundation to do lots of things. Widgets are just the "skin of the orange". I don't want core developer team members to worry about widgets. I want them on scalability, architecture, robustness, security, etc. Investing on widgets should not be for Seaside itself but for pieces of software build on top of it. You are free to make your own widgets. Every web app has its goals in terms of usability and fortunately for users (which are real persons) information can usually be presented to them in ways which has more meaning than tables when some criterious design is applied. Regardeless of the technology of your choice, if you don't know much about html, javascript, css, ajax, etc. and don't want to spend *a lot* of time with those, think again about messing with web apps at all. Cheers, Sebastian > -----Mensaje original----- > De: [hidden email] > [mailto:[hidden email]] En nombre > de Michael Atkisson > Enviado el: Miercoles, 17 de Diciembre de 2008 17:15 > Para: [hidden email] > Asunto: [Seaside] Starting out > > Imagine you are a business programmer, although you have heard of this > exciting new environment called Seaside. > > You would like to create forms that operate like the ones you > do at work > such as in Oracle Forms. On further investigation, perhaps you manage > to make it through the tutorials. But when you go to do > something real, > behold you discover that some of the most basic components such > displaying a datagrid from rows in a table are missing. > Something that > you probablydo on at least 50% of your forms in Oracle > > Next you read the mailing list to see if anyone has a solution to the > problem. You discover that some people are decidely against putting > anything like that in the core because of their purist inclinations. > Others are simply say to go learn one of the javascript libraries > and do it that way. This is also a dilema as you don't know which one > would be good and this stuff isn't all that understandable to you. > > You don't know much about html, javascript, css, ajax, etc. and you > probably don't want to spend a year figuring it all out. > All you want to do is solve problems like the ones you have at work in > as straightforward a way as possible. > > How much further do you think that person is likely to go? > > _______________________________________________ > seaside mailing list > [hidden email] > http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/seaside _______________________________________________ seaside mailing list [hidden email] http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/seaside |
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In reply to this post by Michael Atkisson
>
> Imagine you are a business programmer, although you have heard of this > exciting new environment called Seaside. > > You would like to create forms that operate like the ones you do at work > such as in Oracle Forms. On further investigation, perhaps you manage > to make it through the tutorials. But when you go to do something real, > behold you discover that some of the most basic components such > displaying a datagrid from rows in a table are missing. Something that > you probablydo on at least 50% of your forms in Oracle > > Next you read the mailing list to see if anyone has a solution to the > problem. You discover that some people are decidely against putting > anything like that in the core because of their purist inclinations. > Others are simply say to go learn one of the javascript libraries > and do it that way. This is also a dilema as you don't know which one > would be good and this stuff isn't all that understandable to you. > > You don't know much about html, javascript, css, ajax, etc. and you > probably don't want to spend a year figuring it all out. > All you want to do is solve problems like the ones you have at work in > as straightforward a way as possible. > > How much further do you think that person is likely to go? > My Impression of the responses so far. Someone might work on these issues some day. We have either no interest or they are not important enough to address by the people who actually do the programming of the seaside system. We don't care if the system is useful to normal business programmer types, we only care that it is stable. Yes, you do have to be a rocket scientist to work on seaside! Please start your education immediately and come back when you are ready. PS: On hand holding issue. I have never submitted a programming issue to Oracle yet. I do have to read their documentation occasionally. _______________________________________________ seaside mailing list [hidden email] http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/seaside |
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In reply to this post by Sebastian Sastre-2
> Regardeless of the technology of your choice, if you don't
> know much about html, > javascript, css, ajax, etc. and don't want to spend *a lot* > of time with those, > think again about messing with web apps at all. > Cheers, > Sebastian I'll second that, the idea that you're going to do anything well in the web app space without knowing HTML, CSS, and JavaScript is just naive. Web apps will likely never be the easy drag and drop build it all in a GUI environment you see in desktop frameworks. Secondly, basic HTML and CSS skills are not difficult to learn, if you can program then you can understand a couple of simple markup languages with little effort. Ramon Leon http://onsmalltalk.com _______________________________________________ seaside mailing list [hidden email] http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/seaside |
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In reply to this post by Michael Atkisson
> to make it through the tutorials. But when you go to do
> something real, behold you discover that some of the most basic components such > > displaying a datagrid from rows in a table are missing. This is not a basic component of a web framework, persistence and tables have nothing to do with web frameworks. If you want a datagrid, Seaside has a basic table report, see http://www.shaffer-consulting.com/david/Seaside/WATableReport/index.html > > problem. You discover that some people are decidely against putting > > anything like that in the core because of their purist inclinations. No, it's because the core framework only has a few developers and they should spend their time on things other than GUI widgets, like the next version of Seaside and performance and scalability. Widgets belong in add on packages, not the core, Seaside is the core. > > Others are simply say to go learn one of the javascript libraries > > and do it that way. This is also a dilema as you don't know > which one > > would be good and this stuff isn't all that understandable to you. Ask questions, personally I'd recommend Prototype and Scriptaculous because they are already well integrated with Seaside via add on packages that make using them trivial. > My Impression of the responses so far. > > Someone might work on these issues some day. > We have either no interest or they are not important enough > to address by the people who actually do the programming > of the seaside system. No, it's just that the community is very small and people work on the things they themselves need the most. > We don't care if the system is useful to normal business > programmer types, we only care that it is stable. If by normal business programmer type you mean someone who doesn't know HTML and CSS, then you're probably not far off. It is very useful to normal web programmer types, but that is after all the target audience. > Yes, you do have to be a rocket scientist to work on seaside! No, you don't, but you do have to be patient and ask lots of questions because there isn't much documentation, not in comparison to other communities like Rails for example. > Please start your education immediately and come back > when you are ready. > > PS: On hand holding issue. I have never submitted a programming > issue to Oracle yet. I do have to read their documentation > occasionally. Well, you're going to have to ask questions and read the community blogs, and even the source code and class comments to really get a grip on Seaside. This isn't your main stream web framework with 100 how-to books, it's bleeding edge stuff, you have to expect it'll take a little more effort to get going. Ramon Leon http://onsmalltalk.com _______________________________________________ seaside mailing list [hidden email] http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/seaside |
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In reply to this post by Ramon Leon-5
On Dec 17, 2008, at 3:22 PM, Ramon Leon wrote:
>> Regardeless of the technology of your choice, if you don't >> know much about html, >> javascript, css, ajax, etc. and don't want to spend *a lot* >> of time with those, >> think again about messing with web apps at all. >> Cheers, >> Sebastian > > I'll second that, the idea that you're going to do anything well in > the web > app space without knowing HTML, CSS, and JavaScript is just naive. I used to think that until I built a web app. using Google Web Toolkit (GWT). You really can build nice, Ajax-style web apps. using that will only knowledge of Java and CSS. GWT compiles Java code to JavaScript instead of bytecode. Of course Java wouldn't will any popularity contents on this list. I much prefer Smalltalk over Java. It would be interesting to see an implementation of GWT based on Smalltalk instead of Java. > Web apps > will likely never be the easy drag and drop build it all in a GUI > environment you see in desktop frameworks. Secondly, basic HTML and > CSS > skills are not difficult to learn, if you can program then you can > understand a couple of simple markup languages with little effort. --- Mark Volkmann _______________________________________________ seaside mailing list [hidden email] http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/seaside |
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In reply to this post by Michael Atkisson
Hi Michael,
If your question was simply intended to find out if someone who is comfortable with Oracle Forms will be able to use Seaside easily, then I guess that the answer is "no" (in part, since Seaside doesn't have the resources of a company like Oracle supporting it). If your question was rhetorical with the intent of shaming the community into moving in the direction you want, then you aren't likely to make much of an impact. Since your exaggerations seem intended to provoke a response (see http://kb.iu.edu/data/afhc.html), you might tell us a bit more about yourself and how you would like to contribute to the community. James On Dec 17, 2008, at 1:14 PM, Michael Atkisson wrote: >> >> Imagine you are a business programmer, although you have heard of >> this >> exciting new environment called Seaside. >> >> You would like to create forms that operate like the ones you do at >> work >> such as in Oracle Forms. On further investigation, perhaps you >> manage >> to make it through the tutorials. But when you go to do something >> real, >> behold you discover that some of the most basic components such >> displaying a datagrid from rows in a table are missing. Something >> that >> you probablydo on at least 50% of your forms in Oracle >> >> Next you read the mailing list to see if anyone has a solution to the >> problem. You discover that some people are decidely against putting >> anything like that in the core because of their purist inclinations. >> Others are simply say to go learn one of the javascript libraries >> and do it that way. This is also a dilema as you don't know which one >> would be good and this stuff isn't all that understandable to you. >> >> You don't know much about html, javascript, css, ajax, etc. and you >> probably don't want to spend a year figuring it all out. >> All you want to do is solve problems like the ones you have at work >> in >> as straightforward a way as possible. >> >> How much further do you think that person is likely to go? >> > > My Impression of the responses so far. > > Someone might work on these issues some day. > We have either no interest or they are not important enough > to address by the people who actually do the programming > of the seaside system. > We don't care if the system is useful to normal business > programmer types, we only care that it is stable. > Yes, you do have to be a rocket scientist to work on seaside! > Please start your education immediately and come back > when you are ready. > > PS: On hand holding issue. I have never submitted a programming > issue to Oracle yet. I do have to read their documentation > occasionally. > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > seaside mailing list > [hidden email] > http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/seaside > _______________________________________________ seaside mailing list [hidden email] http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/seaside |
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In reply to this post by Ramon Leon-5
> > I'll second that, the idea that you're going to do anything well in the web > app space without knowing HTML, CSS, and JavaScript is just naive. Web apps > will likely never be the easy drag and drop build it all in a GUI > environment you see in desktop frameworks. Secondly, basic HTML and CSS > skills are not difficult to learn, if you can program then you can > understand a couple of simple markup languages with little effort. > > Ramon Leon > http://onsmalltalk.com > I personally do have a basic knowledge of html, javascript and css. What I had to know to get a project done. But basically all I hear you saying. you don't want to put anything in Seaside that would make it easier for someone with a limited knowledge of these areas to actually do useful work before they can become experts. _______________________________________________ seaside mailing list [hidden email] http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/seaside |
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In reply to this post by Michael Atkisson
Michael, I think that you are comparing apples to oranges. Oracle handles one class of problems like a champ. If you have such problem at hand then you should stick toOracle. On the other hand if you would like to build web apps for Internet, you should accept that some things which are trivial in typical forms app require a lot of work. Seaside helps to cut down that amount of work. But unfortunately web apps are such mess that there is still a lot of plumbing that needs to be done on infrastructure, and that's what seaside does well. On Dec 17, 2008 10:14 PM, "Michael Atkisson" <[hidden email]> wrote: _______________________________________________ seaside mailing list [hidden email] http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/seaside |
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In reply to this post by jgfoster
James Foster <Smalltalk <at> JGFoster.net> writes:
> > Hi Michael, > > If your question was simply intended to find out if someone who is > comfortable with Oracle Forms will be able to use Seaside easily, then > I guess that the answer is "no" (in part, since Seaside doesn't have > the resources of a company like Oracle supporting it). If your > question was rhetorical with the intent of shaming the community into > moving in the direction you want, then you aren't likely to make much > of an impact. Since your exaggerations seem intended to provoke a > response (see http://kb.iu.edu/data/afhc.html), you might tell us a > bit more about yourself and how you would like to contribute to the > community. > > I was most definately trying to get response. I am not normally a sarcastic person. However, if seaside is going to be the force the communitiy appears to want it to be, it needs the address some usability issues. If it gets no response, at least, I have done what I could to provoke some thought (Probably useless, but at least I did it). I don't remember anyone else doing it. _______________________________________________ seaside mailing list [hidden email] http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/seaside |
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In reply to this post by Michael Atkisson
I think you and the community have different definitions of "Seaside". You believe it should include all the widgets. The community seas Seaside as a core framework for building applications with widgets being provided by add-on packages. I think we would all love to see more add-on's, but don't expect them to come from the Seaside core team.
-david
On Wed, Dec 17, 2008 at 3:48 PM, Michael Atkisson <[hidden email]> wrote:
_______________________________________________ seaside mailing list [hidden email] http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/seaside |
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In reply to this post by Michael Atkisson
> you don't
> want to put anything in Seaside that would make it easier for > someone with > a limited knowledge of these areas to actually do useful work > before they > can become experts. > > Michael, Is not a matter of wanting to make anything harder for anybody. Please consider using your time to face your own challenges as we all do instead of speculate, wrongly, on community intentions. You are welcomed to ask concrete questions as you go while surpasing those challenges. Cheers, Sebastian _______________________________________________ seaside mailing list [hidden email] http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/seaside |
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In reply to this post by Michael Atkisson
I used Seaside and Smalltalk for the first time this summer. It wasn't easy but, unlike some online communities, these folks were willing to talk patiently to a "dumb-noob". And it was well worth it.
In the beginning, your productivity will take a *huge* hit and your co-workers may even look at you with contempt. Of the many wheels you will re-invent the most frustrating ones (for me) are those that have been implemented in other languages/frameworks and are well-documented and mature - login boxes/user management for instance. I certainly sympathize with your frustration. And the more innovative your tools, the less the distance between you and the designers, the harder you have run. The big win, and for me the one that trumped everything else was the helpful community and that Seaside and Smalltalk are jam-packed with *concepts* not brand-names. The concepts tend to last longer and carry over to many other areas of computer science. For this reason Seaside will make you better web developer, and Smalltalk will make you a better programmer. But it will be a while before you can impress your boss by delivering on a project that was due "yesterday". -deech On Wed, Dec 17, 2008 at 3:48 PM, Michael Atkisson <[hidden email]> wrote:
_______________________________________________ seaside mailing list [hidden email] http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/seaside |
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In reply to this post by Michael Atkisson
> From: Michael Atkisson <[hidden email]>
> I personally do have a basic knowledge of html, javascript and css. > What I had > to know to get a project done. But basically all I hear you > saying. you don't > want to put anything in Seaside that would make it easier for > someone with > a limited knowledge of these areas to actually do useful work before > they > can become experts. Dear Santa, I want a nice widget set, I want less session memory overhead I want multi-core support I want 64 bit support I want better tutorials I want more tests I want better documented classes I want a faster VM, with real closures I want a new FFI, that can also call java and .net I want more people to work on Seaside, Squeak and co. Stephan _______________________________________________ seaside mailing list [hidden email] http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/seaside |
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In reply to this post by david54
David Pennell wrote:
> I think you and the community have different definitions of "Seaside". > You believe it should include all the widgets. maybe he need a list of the available packages providing widgest to use on top of Seaside. I would definitely love to see that (together with examples), since I sometimes feel a little bit lost. I have seen Scriptaculous and others like Plotkit, I'm just not sure if I'm missing something or not. richie _______________________________________________ seaside mailing list [hidden email] http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/seaside |
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> David Pennell wrote:
> > I think you and the community have different definitions of > "Seaside". > > You believe it should include all the widgets. > > maybe he need a list of the available packages providing > widgest to use > on top of Seaside. > I would definitely love to see that (together with examples), since I > sometimes feel a little bit lost. I have seen Scriptaculous > and others > like Plotkit, I'm just not sure if I'm missing something or not. > > richie http://seaside.st/community/extensions Ramon Leon http://onsmalltalk.com _______________________________________________ seaside mailing list [hidden email] http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/seaside |
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In reply to this post by Michael Atkisson
I think the Seaside core developers are concentrating on the right
thing. The kinds of things you're looking for are being addressed by vendors: -- Cincom with Web Velocity -- Gemstone with GLASS -- Heeg with SeaBreeze Bear in mind that Oracle Forms is a commercial product built by a vendor, so it's not a surprise that Seaside should have a split between core and value add. James Robertson Cincom Smalltalk Product Evangelist http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/blog/blogView Talk Small and Carry a Big Class Library On Dec 17, 2008, at 2:14 PM, Michael Atkisson wrote: > Imagine you are a business programmer, although you have heard of this > exciting new environment called Seaside. > > You would like to create forms that operate like the ones you do at > work > such as in Oracle Forms. On further investigation, perhaps you manage > to make it through the tutorials. But when you go to do something > real, > behold you discover that some of the most basic components such > displaying a datagrid from rows in a table are missing. Something > that > you probablydo on at least 50% of your forms in Oracle > > Next you read the mailing list to see if anyone has a solution to the > problem. You discover that some people are decidely against putting > anything like that in the core because of their purist inclinations. > Others are simply say to go learn one of the javascript libraries > and do it that way. This is also a dilema as you don't know which one > would be good and this stuff isn't all that understandable to you. > > You don't know much about html, javascript, css, ajax, etc. and you > probably don't want to spend a year figuring it all out. > All you want to do is solve problems like the ones you have at work in > as straightforward a way as possible. > > How much further do you think that person is likely to go? > > _______________________________________________ > seaside mailing list > [hidden email] > http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/seaside > _______________________________________________ seaside mailing list [hidden email] http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/seaside |
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In reply to this post by Michael Atkisson
Michael,
I read your posting and I had to laugh a little. I work full time during the day building web based applications in Java with a relational database supporting the storage and delivery of data. I work in about as corporate and conservative an environment that you could imagine. Security is key, reducing risk is key, standards are key. Our management believes that using standard industry accepted technology keeps them safe, and secure and minimizes expenses. We use JBOSS as our application server. "Why?" you ask. Because we can get a support contract from Red Hat for it. Never mind what we do would more than adequately be supported by Tomcat, but we take the safe route with corporate support. We're probably a bit extreme, but not as bad as some of the other places, I've worked. The possibility of bringing in Seaside and Smalltalk in our environment, is about zero. Not for any of the reasons you mention. Professionally I think what seaside brings to the table could easily be a huge advantage in many of our smaller projects. Quick rapid prototyping of a sophisticated application in with a development environment that, mostly, works with you not against you (ask me about my frustrations with eclipse and maven sometime). Where's the support contract? Where's the industry acceptance? Where can I hire 5 experienced Seaside developers in the next week. How do I scale a Seaside application? How do I manage multiple instances of Seaside integrated with BigIP? Where are the articles in Information Week about successful deployments with Seaside? All of those are barriers to entry for Seaside in Corporate America. Seaside does not stand in your way of getting work done. It may not give you all the most sophisticated widgets and doo dahs' to ease your development tasks, but I am extremely certain that it will not get in the way of doing the work you need to do, and that once you've built up a library of your own gadgets, you'd be able to go from requirements to finished web sites very quickly. But I think the biggest issue is that currently you have to be motivated, good at what you do, and a step above the average programmer in CA to see the advantages of Seaside, and be successful with it. Seaside at this point is not visible enough to pass the Corporate America Risk test. (Are my peers using it? Have I read enough about it? Am I risking my career by choosing it?). The current situation with WebDevelopment is a Big Ball of Mud. There's a thousand different possible solutions, all in varying states of sophistication. In order to do real sophisticated web development you need to know a bunch of different technologies, HTML, JavaScript, XML, SOAP, CSS, AJAX, are probably the basics, but then you can go way beyond that as well. For example start looking at the differences in the implementation of the HTTP and CSS specs by each browser, and how IE differens from Firefox. (oy vey). I can almost certainly guarantee that if you're building web pages with Oracle Forms, then Seaside is not in the near future, if ever, going to be a suitable replacement for what you have. in the same way that you'll not likely replaces Visual Basic programs with XWindows/C+ + programs. Oracle Forms glosses over many of the grungy details, which you don't want to know about and probably don't care to know about. Enjoy Seaside and understand that it has strengths and weaknesses. If you want to really understand the HTTP Protocol, the details of how data moves back and forth between your web browser and your application, you can discover that with Seaside. If you want to just build something cool and avoid most of that you can do that too with Seaside, but you won't get the hand holding that Orcacle can provide because they have 1000's of your dollars in licensing fees and product purchases. Now, having said all that, I know there are companies that support seaside, I know that there are people using seaside to develop sophisticated applications used by the general public. I know that some folks are making a living doing seaside development work. It's all possible, but you have to work in a very open environment and not the typical corporate american IT world to live life on that edge. Tony Giaccone On Dec 17, 2008, at 2:14 PM, Michael Atkisson wrote: > Imagine you are a business programmer, although you have heard of this > exciting new environment called Seaside. > > You would like to create forms that operate like the ones you do at > work > such as in Oracle Forms. On further investigation, perhaps you manage > to make it through the tutorials. But when you go to do something > real, > behold you discover that some of the most basic components such > displaying a datagrid from rows in a table are missing. Something > that > you probablydo on at least 50% of your forms in Oracle > > Next you read the mailing list to see if anyone has a solution to the > problem. You discover that some people are decidely against putting > anything like that in the core because of their purist inclinations. > Others are simply say to go learn one of the javascript libraries > and do it that way. This is also a dilema as you don't know which one > would be good and this stuff isn't all that understandable to you. > > You don't know much about html, javascript, css, ajax, etc. and you > probably don't want to spend a year figuring it all out. > All you want to do is solve problems like the ones you have at work in > as straightforward a way as possible. > > How much further do you think that person is likely to go? > > _______________________________________________ > seaside mailing list > [hidden email] > http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/seaside _______________________________________________ seaside mailing list [hidden email] http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/seaside |
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In reply to this post by Ramon Leon-5
On Wed, Dec 17, 2008 at 6:10 PM, Ramon Leon <[hidden email]> wrote:
That's a good page. It probably should have a link to the projects page. Projects is already linked to extensions. -david _______________________________________________ seaside mailing list [hidden email] http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/seaside |
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