[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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