Path: mv.asterisco.pt!mvalente
From: mvale…@ruido-visual.pt (Mario Valente)
Newsgroups: mv
Subject: The Future of Web Development
Date: Sat, 17 May 07 20:08:21 GMT
Ever since I chose Zope (back in 1999) as the basis for
easy web development, I’ve been constantly looking for better
alternatives. One such alternative, back in 2005, was (for
me) the choice of Nuxeo CPS (which is Zope based).
http://www.zope.org/
http://www.cps-project.org/
That constant search was definitely not helped by the
development of Zope 3; technically its brilliant; its a
total mess in pragmatic terms. Even I, with a brain the
size of the universe, am unable to totally grasp its
concepts. Which it figures: being the concept child of
Jim Fulton, a genius, trying to actually grasp it means
your brain could explode.
The search was also completely botched by Nuxeo’s option
to switch from Python development to Java development. I
guess stupidity is a God given right, so I won’t say much
about that choice.
Meanwhile, lots of stuff has come up: Django, Pylons,
TurboGears, Ruby on Rails, you name it… I dont want to
go over extensively why I dont like any of them, but let
me just state this: if the “framework” allows for the
mixing of layout/design/HTML with code/programming, for
me is enough of a disqualifier.
A mix of CherryPy with PyMeld is the closest thing that
I have found that aproximates what I have in mind, but
still not enough, which is why I’ve been thinking about
developing a “framework” of my own (dont we all…)
http://www.cherrypy.org/
http://entrian.com/PyMeld/
The Wheat project also seems to have some good ideas
but unfortunately it seems to have stopped:
http://www.wheatfarm.org/
My justification for the current lack of better choices
is that there’s a complete lack of understanding on the
relation between the 3-tier architectural pattern and the
MVC architectural pattern. If you think they are one and
the same thing, you dont know jackshit; if you know they
arent the same thing but fail to understand the relation
between those two, expect a post from me on the subject
one of these days. Meanwhile, go and read this:
http://www.tonymarston.net/php-mysql/infrastructure-faq.html#faq26
Still, while on the lookout, I’ve always kept an eye out
for the ActiveGrid guys ( http://www.activegrid.com/ ). If
there’s someone who’s thinking long term and in terms of
future standards use (BPEL, XPath, XForms, etc), its them.
Their latest screencast is a feast for the eyes and mind
and puts to shame some of the “ooh-aah” demos that have
been floating around for the last 3 or 4 years. Go watch
it and cry:
http://www.activegrid.com/demo_screencast/empnom2/empnom2.html
— MV
