[Seaside] odds and ends

[radoslav hodnicak]

On Wed, 29 Jun 2005, Ramon Leon wrote:
> I do, and I'd bet many others do to.  Web apps don't get the credit they
> deserve because they're thought of too much as web pages and too little
> as real applications.  Why shouldn't a web app be more like Photoshop
> and let you doc stuff where you like?  Why shouldn't web forms be laid
> out by the developer at run time with drag and drop while in design
> mode?  It's trivial to use JavaScript and the DOM to generate the
> necessary CSS to store a pages layout, why should CSS be written by hand
> when it isn't necessary?
>
> I hate the name Ajax, but the techniques have been used for years and
> still aren't used enough.  Seaside isn't for making web pages... other
> frameworks do that much better, seaside is for web applications, and it
> does that better than the rest, IMHO, and "full" Ajax support should be
> built in as soon as possible.

Ok, first of all, I don't really have experience with developing "Ajax" (a 
stupid name indeed) kind of web applications, so don't take it as attack 
on this technology. Clearly, if/when it is available in Seaside nobody 
will force me to use it. I'm trying to get informed.

Issue #1 - Trust

I don't trust the browser. I won't ever use javascript to validate forms 
(not without a second check on the server, which makes the first check 
pointless), a http post is easy to fake. How many backdoors am I opening 
by using these new techniques, partially moving application logic from 
server to client?

Issue #2 - Development time

Debugging javascript in IE is a nightmare. It's somewhat better in 
mozillas. Generally, debugging outside of smalltalk takes longer than in 
smalltalk. I'm one of the few people who gets paid for seaside work. As 
cynical as it sounds, I'm not using smalltalk/seaside to provide my 
customers the best possible solution, I'm using it to provide my customers 
some set of features to make the app competitive, *with least possible 
effort on my side*. Will using these new techniques actually make my life 
as developer easier?

Looking forward to hear other opinions,
rado