Does anyone have any recommendations on what books I should start with to eventually get into WebObjects? After I heard WO was going open source I would love to be on the cutting edge of this technology. My current background is HTML, XSL, XML...
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The Introductions to the various parts of the WebObjects stack in Apple's developer documentation are books unto themselves. Start there.
Untrue as of yet, unfortunately. The Apple-preferred tools are now open-source, but only becasue Apple changed which tools it considers preferred, from EOModeler/Xcode/WOBuilder to Entity Modeler/Eclipse/WOLips.
You're about 10 years too late for that, and 2(ish) years too late for just the free stuff.
The first is helpful, the rest may or may not be.
You know, I started looking into WebObjects about 6 months ago, but finally ended up going for Ruby On Rails. Both solutions have their own deployment problems if you're looking at a web-hosting solution. If you are running your own servers, this won't of course be a problem.
But I would seriously have a look at Ruby On Rails if I were you. There are some excellent introductory texts can get you up and running in no time. The only hassle is that installing RoR on a Mac can be an exercise in frustration. I had to spend a fair amoun of time on the Internet searching for the reason between various build errors I was getting diring the config/make/install process. The pay-off is that Ruby is very cool, and WEBrick takes all the headaches out of running a development Web server...
But I would seriously have a look at Ruby On Rails if I were you. There are some excellent introductory texts can get you up and running in no time. The only hassle is that installing RoR on a Mac can be an exercise in frustration. I had to spend a fair amoun of time on the Internet searching for the reason between various build errors I was getting diring the config/make/install process. The pay-off is that Ruby is very cool, and WEBrick takes all the headaches out of running a development Web server...
JSP and PHP especially have nothing, except cost, on WO. Nor does WO have anything on them. They are generally in different problem domains. If WO went OSS (perhaps under the APSL2, or a modified BSD license) it would be competing against RoR and Cayenne and Struts. Which it would wipe the floor with.Apple2Mac said:
Ok so what I'm looking to do is redeploy a site I built in 1998 is static HTML, I will be rebuilding and redesigning the site myself (I currently run my on OS X Server so I have complete control over the environment) the site is a film community site http://inetfilm.com
I haven't updated it in years, what I want to do is make the site more you-tube only in the sense that users can up load their own films etc. i.e. Community driven...
I was thinking WO because it seamed like a powerful technology to work from and being a apple product that in itself intrigues me. My concerns are if I learn something that the technology should be useful on other projects down the road, and second ease of building something with a one man team, time isn't really a object as the website is a labor of love....
Any suggestion welcome, pros and cons of any particular development platform...
I haven't updated it in years, what I want to do is make the site more you-tube only in the sense that users can up load their own films etc. i.e. Community driven...
I was thinking WO because it seamed like a powerful technology to work from and being a apple product that in itself intrigues me. My concerns are if I learn something that the technology should be useful on other projects down the road, and second ease of building something with a one man team, time isn't really a object as the website is a labor of love....
Any suggestion welcome, pros and cons of any particular development platform...
GeeYouEye said:
This is not true. Apple deprecated its own tools long term, but they still come bundled with Xcode 2.4 - WebObjects is a separate, free install in Xcode 2.4 so it ships with every Mac
http://developer.apple.com/webobjects
The WebObjects community provides the new developer tools, not Apple. These are built around Eclipse as plugins. For details and an FAQ, see here:
http://www.objectstyle.org/confluence/display/WOCOM/FAQ+on+WebObjects
There you also have links to the new community tools (WOLips etc.)
demallien said:
?
I don't know about RoR, but you can deploy WebObjects using JBoss or Tomcat 5.5, also on other platforms, not just Mac OS X Server.
There's no need to even install WebObjects deployment if you use the SSDD option.
This has been available since WebObjects 5.2
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/WebObjects/WhatsNew5.2/WhatsNew/chapter_1_section_3.html
With this option, all you need is - for example - Tomcat or Jetty which many hosting services provide.
For RoR, you need an RoR-aware server. There are modules for Apache that let it do this. But thanks for the heads-up on WebObjects - what can I say, I traded in WebObjects for RoR before getting to deployment, and just assumed Apple would have done their usual end-to-end, well-integrated-goodness, but vendor-locked solution. Happy to learn that it's not the case...darkstarone said:
Yes, it is; the mailing lists have very strongly implied that. I could give you proof, but I'd be breaking NDA from WWDC.
demallien said:
It used to cost $699 to deploy (on other platforms than OS X Server) before.
Starting with WebObjects 5.2 and WebObjects 5.3, Apple added WebObjects to the Xcode tool suite for free and deployment is also free on any Java platform (WO 5.3)
Understandandably, Apple only supports OS X Server deployment, but since it's Java...well, not a lot of difference
Since there more people familiar with Tomcat etc. hosting, the option to deploy through a servlet container may even be easier on OS X Server.
(The other, older option is to install the WO deployment runtime, which less people are familiar with).
GeeYouEye said:
Agreed in general. I was quoting untrue to what you wrote here...
GeeYouEye said:
The WebObjects community provides and initiated these developer tools you quote (Entity Modeler/Eclipse/WOLips...) not Apple. These tools always were open-source. Apple will _not_ open-source their WebObjects tools bundled with Xcode, they deprecated them.
Summary:
Apple will focus on the WO runtime from now on, the community will provide the tools based on Eclipse/Java.
This is a good solution IMO, why should Apple provide Java tools ? Even more compete against an excellent, free tool like Eclipse/Java ?
Even Sun can't compete against Eclipse, so it's better to join the Eclipse bandwagon. A lot of people never liked Xcode for Java development anyway.
Either that or I am misreading the WO developer list and the new WebObjects FAQ mentioned in the list.
PS: There's a good book describing using WebObjects with WOLips:
Practical WebObjects
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1590592964
This is for intermediate to advanced readers, better read the other stuff first. See the links I provided in earlier posts above for people interested to start with WebObjects.
^I am failing to see what is untrue. I said the Apple-preferred (not Apple-supplied) tools are now open-source. This is not due to open-sourcing the Xcode/EOModeler/WOBuilder, but because of a change in which tools are preferred.
What part of that is wrong?
Apple's previously preferred tools were EOModeler/Xcode/WOBuilder. >true
EOM/XC/WOB are closed source. >true
Apple's preferred tools have changed to Entity Modeler/Eclipse/WOLips. >true
Entity Modeler/Eclipse/WOLips are open-source >true
ergo: Apple's preferred tools are now open-source, because Apple has changed which set of tools it prefers.
What part of that is wrong?
Apple's previously preferred tools were EOModeler/Xcode/WOBuilder. >true
EOM/XC/WOB are closed source. >true
Apple's preferred tools have changed to Entity Modeler/Eclipse/WOLips. >true
Entity Modeler/Eclipse/WOLips are open-source >true
ergo: Apple's preferred tools are now open-source, because Apple has changed which set of tools it prefers.
GeeYouEye said:
Yes, agreed. Much clearer to me now
Your first post just made it sound to me or a reader not too familiar with the subject that the future Java/WebObjects developer tools will still be supplied by Apple.
The important thing in my opinion is WebObjects comes free with Xcode and the new tools are free and open source.
I hope more Mac or Web developers will have a look at it now than before when you had to buy the WebObjects developer tools.
It's a really nice and POWERFUL environment.
However, when I tried the community tools some time ago I couldn't make them work. I followed the tutorial for newbies to be found at
http://www.objectstyle.org/confluence/display/WOL/Install+WOLips+with+Eclipse+Update+Manager
I then downloaded and reinstalled a newer Eclipse 3.2 build - the final one -
and everything worked fine.
Horray
Apple did not keep the WO tools updated. Ultimately many got screwed unless you want to stay with Tiger as the tools won't run on Leopard. The Eclipse/WOLIps guys are doing great but you had better be a guru and expect things to change daily.
I never liked the move from WO 4.5 to Java. I think Apple should have kept it in house. But with that being said I am hoping to see a Cocoa ObjC enterprise re-appear. This I think would be the Hot ticket for those wanting to stay with Cocoa and not try to learn everything out there. Also WebObjects Builder was awesome and there is no replacement for that!