[Seaside] Seaside project ideas?

[Kurt Thams]

> On 9/5/06, Kurt Thams <thams at thams.com> wrote:
> > Gosh...what web application, other than serving static pages, 
> > *wouldn't* be easier in Seaside?
> 
> As I see it, you pay a price when you use Seaside. You get 
> ugly URLs that can't be hacked off to navigate with. The 
> simple fact is users use URLs as a user interface element. In 
> exchange for a usability hit you'd better be delivering an 
> experience that's impossible to create with Rails et al. 

Impossible to create with Rails? 

I don't see the tradeoff that way. 

(1) The URLs issue is a tiny hit in usability; most people want to bookmark
entry points into an application, not every page inside it. This is
*especially* true of dynamic websites. Do you bookmark the page that
confirms your shipping address in a web shopping application?

(2) Seaside makes it really, really easy to develop applications that work
much more the way a user thinks. (Including: using the "Back" and "Forward"
buttons doesn't get the state all goofed up). This usability enhancement
alone more than makes up for the URL look problem, IMHO.

(3) In Seaside, it is so much easier to develop applications, as compared to
any other platform that I've seen. That *really* makes it a big win for me.
Sorry if my users don't get natty URLs, but there are some applications I
just wouldn't have bothered writing if I had to slog through any other
framework.

(4) Debugging is dramatically easier than debugging from other systems.
Really. (If anyone can describe another system that is comparable, I'd like
to know it).

What I'd suggest is that you try writing a simple application (or work
through some of the tutorials and then expand on their examples). My guess
is that in short order, you will find yourself creating complex, functioning
web sites that take you a tiny-tiny-tiny amount of time to get developed and
debugged!


I'll grant that Ruby on Rails is pretty sweet if you are doing an
application that displays and edits columnar data taken from an RDB, but I
suspect that sooner or later that same kind of functionality will get built
into Seaside.

Question for the community: Could the URL-based state mapping be addressed
some other way? (This has probably already been taken up here; if so,
sorry).