[Seaside] [RFT] New web project

William Harford seaside at harford.org
Thu Nov 9 22:34:13 UTC 2006


On Nov 9, 2006, at 3:11 PM, Jason Johnson wrote:

>>
>> It would be super cool if we could define the interface and some  
>> behaviors via direct manipulation and then fill in the blanks with  
>> some code.
>>
> I'm not sure what you mean with this part, but we can discuss it.

I mean you build/change/extend the application in the application via  
dragging, clicking, grabbing halos, etc.

See the below link for an example.

http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~black/CS420/Tutorial/Squeak%20Worksheet% 
201B.html

>
> But as far as how it behaves, I'm not sure what you mean about the  
> OO tree biased.  Do you mean hierarchical?  My data tends to be  
> relational (or my mind arranges it this way at least), and from  
> what I have seen I think most groups out there are the same.  So I  
> would want a low cost of entry for relational folks.  But we can  
> talk about this.  What you mean, how would it work, how does it  
> make life easier for users, what are the costs when we're talking  
> to an existing relational back end, etc.

Yes I mean hierarchical. There are ways to store hierarchical data in  
relational database. I created a project called REServe that does  
just that ( http://squeaksource.com/REServe.html ) but you sacrifice  
some of the advantages of both models by doing so. It's a trade off.

It makes life easier for users because it's one less thing to think  
about. If you are developing a Smalltalk application it is inherently  
hierarchical. If you want to persist objects in a relational database  
some tradeoffs will have to be made and you loose some of the power  
that Smalltalk gives you.  For example polymorphism ( REServe works  
around this problem by having a lookup table and unique IDs for every  
row in the database regardless of table) .

>> Direct manipulation development is something that has only barely  
>> been explored with desktop applications and has seen almost no  
>> experimentation/implementation on the web front.
>>
> I'm interested in hearing more about this.  I

The idea is that you limit if not completely eliminate the  
abstraction between developing the application and using it. MS  
Access sort of does this although I don't think it's the best example.

I say think way outside the box on this.
You stand a better chance of the project getting attention by doing  
something radical :-)

Thanks
Will


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