[Seaside] Seaside2: separation between content and presentation

[Avi Bryant]

On Tue, 3 Dec 2002 tblanchard@mac.com wrote:

> On Tuesday, December 3, 2002, at 12:30  AM, Avi Bryant wrote:
>
> > One of the things Colin and I are working on right now for Tantalus
> > (the
> > O/R framework we use internally, but that occasionally sees open
> > releases)
> > is the ability to use a .eomodeld to describe the mapping - this should
> > make migration a lot easier for EOF users.  Tantalus is not yet up to
> > EOF
> > standards (one thing it sorely lacks is a good query facility, which
> > GLORP does have, I think...) but it'll get there eventually; if you're
> > interested in using/improving it, let us know.
>
> I think I'm going to try to figure out glorp first.  The idea of using
> boolean blocks as query qualifiers is way cool.  I'm curious why you
> don't just use that.

It is way cool, and what query support there is in Tantalus, uses the same
approach.  But it's nowhere near as fully implemented as Glorp's is.

Let me know how it goes with Glorp, it didn't feel ready for primetime
when I last looked at it.

> I have a partially finished java eof replacement complete with nearly
> finished java swing eomodeler.

Oho.  Good to know.  Feel like emailing me a jar?

>  I lost interest in working on it when I
> ended up with a new copy of webobjects as a result of my current
> contract.  Plus I'm just plain sick of java.  Wouldn't mind taking a
> stab at a squeak modeler.

Connectors!
If/when you want to do this I can send you our EOModel code, it's pretty
separate from the rest of the framework.

> The triad is a unit - but its composed of other triads.  In any given
> app, there are few pages and many components.  The pages typically just
> contain layout in the form of tables and references to other components
> - plus the action logic is there.

Absolutely.  That's exactly how Seaside apps are meant to be.  Except that
Seaside has one big advantage over WO in the way subcomponents work, which
is that WAContainer makes it possible for an entire thread of control
(subcomponents calling other subcomponents) to be embedded, whereas in WO
whenever a subcomponent calls another, the entire top level page gets
replaced.

> It might make some things less error prone.  I need more experience
> with it to say for sure though.  As an example - the config app in
> Seaside has nested forms on it - I think partly because it was put
> together in a hurry and you did all the widgetry just for that app.  A
> visual designer would be a lovely thing too and view components might
> make that easier to build.

Agreed.