[Seaside] Re: Seaside & Ruby Rails Compared

[Ramon Leon]

> I thought I'd just butt on in and give my two cents on the 
> Rails vs Seaside argument.
> 
> IMHO, there is no argument. They attempt to solve two very 
> different problems;
> 
> Rails doesn't handle complex state. If you want to do that 
> you have to start ajaxifying everything, and using the 
> browser as a state management tool. Let me rephrase that. I'm 
> sure Rails can handle lots of complex state, but its going to 
> be up to you, the programmer, to implement the persistance 
> and management of aid state. Rails apps?
> Think Blog Software, dump data display software.
> 
> Seaside, as far as I can tell was _never_ intended to solve 
> the basic CRUD style of development (Avi?). It was intended 
> to assist a developer whose tasked with creating a complex 
> web application which can easily build wizard like, 
> multi-step apps where complex processes need to be captured, 
> and still let you focus on the actual problem being 
> addressed, and _not_ worry about state. Seaside apps? Think 
> Airline Booking System.
> 
> If you were building a "todo list" in Seaside, I would wonder 
> why. I mean, its sort of like driving a Ferrari to the corner store.
> 
> I'm sure I've offended someone!

I agree with a large part of all that, however, Smalltalk is IMHO,
superior to Ruby, and given that fact, why shouldn't it be able to
handle basic CRUD just as easily?  This doesn't mean Seaside needs to do
this, Seaside is fantastic as a base framework for developing really
complex workflow style applications and shouldn't be overburdened with
everything.  But Smallwiki2 and Magritte, now that's the framework to
enable simple programming-less CRUD.  

With Seaside as it's foundation, and Magritte's meta-descriptions,
components, and composeable containers, and prevalence style
persistence, Lukas is very close to having the capability of point and
click CRUD application development with no programming, no databases,
and no templates of code you have to specialize ala Rails.  Like it or
not, most complex apps start out with simple CRUD and build from there,
you have to start somewhere.  Seaside/Magritte/Smallwiki2 is a killer
combination that IMHO will shortly surpass Rails in it's ease of use to
the point that non programmers could possibly build simple applications
with little to no training, and real programmers can use Magritte
directly via code to make building "any" complex Seaside application
much faster and easier.

Ramon Leon