Hello Now that Apple has slashed the price of WebObjects from $50,000 to $700, I am very interested to hear any opinions/experiences of WebObjects.. how does it compare with Z*** , Man***, Rox**, ColdF***** etc http://www.apple.com/webobjects/ -What are the good ideas? -What is similar? -What is different? -How does WebObjects handle integration with various scripting languages: Python, Perl etc -What effect you think Apple's announcement wil have on webapp market and development? Thanks in advance for any feedback - Jason ________________________________________________________________ Jason CUNLIFFE = NOMADICS.(Interactive Art and Technology).Design Director
WebObjects fits a definition that also works for Zope: both are object-oriented frameworks combined with middleware to enable web applications. Unlike Zope, WebObjects does not have any persistence mechanism of its own; it depends on an RDMS to store objects. Oracle, Sybase and Informix are supported over Solaris or HP-UX; these plus ODBC also work on NT; no other server platforms are currently supported. The object-relational mapping mechanism WO uses, however, is very advanced and, in a basic level, easy to use too. Classes are written in Java by a case-like tool and automatically bound to tables. In fact, programmers rarely have any contact with SQL: all necessary queries are generated automatically by the IDE (which runs only on NT and MacOS X). WebObjects has a powerful user-session handling mechanism. That, together with the tighter integration with an RDBMS, makes it a better choice than Zope for heavily transactional sites, I believe. However, WO does not have anything resembling ZODB with its rich features (versioning, acquisition), so it is a much inferior alternative for complex content-oriented sites where Zope excels. These are my first impressions. I´ve been trying WO for a few days now, but one of our Zope customers has been using it heavily for almost a year. I see WO and Zope as complementary technologies, but using them together in a project would be very difficult if not totally impractical. Best regards, Luciano Jason Cunliffe wrote:
Hello
Now that Apple has slashed the price of WebObjects from $50,000 to $700, I am very interested to hear any opinions/experiences of WebObjects.. how does it compare with Z*** , Man***, Rox**, ColdF***** etc http://www.apple.com/webobjects/
-What are the good ideas? -What is similar? -What is different? -How does WebObjects handle integration with various scripting languages: Python, Perl etc -What effect you think Apple's announcement wil have on webapp market and development?
Thanks in advance for any feedback - Jason ________________________________________________________________ Jason CUNLIFFE = NOMADICS.(Interactive Art and Technology).Design Director
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Luciano Ramalho wrote:
[snip] The object-relational mapping mechanism WO uses, however, is very advanced and, in a basic level, easy to use too. Classes are written in Java by a case-like tool and automatically bound to tables. In fact, programmers rarely have any contact with SQL: all necessary queries are generated automatically by the IDE (which runs only on NT and MacOS X). [snip]
As I recall (from a WebObjects demonstartion I sat through a long time ago), WO creates the most godawful mangled URLs that I had ever seen. As a result, a WO site cannot be spidered by search engines, or converted to a static copy using wget. HTH, Michael Bernstein
Michael Bernstein wrote:
As I recall (from a WebObjects demonstartion I sat through a long time ago), WO creates the most godawful mangled URLs that I had ever seen. As a result, a WO site cannot be spidered by search engines, or converted to a static copy using wget.
Zope's not too hot on this either what with index_html instead of index.html the problem of "is /something' a 'file' or a 'folder' from wget's point of view?" IIRC, it currently would download a zope folder object as a single file :( I've also been bitten by this in Wiki's since links aren't generated with absolute_url and so I sometimes get /MyWikiFolder/OneWikiPage/AnotherWikiPage which throws up a nasty __getitem__ exception (particularly in Netscape, which seems to like appending / onto the end of FrontPage in the URL box...) cheers, Chris
I have a few Zope sites email me any error reports and both of the sites (different machines) get this error about two or three times a day. Traceback: Traceback (innermost last): File /usr/local/zope/lib/python/ZPublisher/Publish.py, line 151, in publish File /usr/local/zope/lib/python/Products/SiteAccess/ChangeBehaviors.py,line 124, in traverse File /usr/local/zope/lib/python/OFS/Application.py, line 249, in __bobo_traverse__ (Object: ApplicationDefaultPermissions) File /usr/local/zope/lib/python/ZPublisher/HTTPResponse.py, line 511, in notFoundError As it looks for this "favicon.ico" Anyone seen this? It is happening on two different instatallations (2.1.4, 2.1.6) on RH Linux 6.1 Thanks, J
On Wed, 7 Jun 2000, J. Atwood wrote:
As it looks for this "favicon.ico"
M$ IE is looking for this file to provide some "niceness" on a page. Search Internet for longer explanations - there are many. Oleg. (All opinions are mine and not of my employer) ---- Oleg Broytmann Foundation for Effective Policies phd@phd.russ.ru Programmers don't die, they just GOSUB without RETURN.
So even though there are no references to it in the HTML MIE is looking for it? Is there anyway to fool it? Can I just put a blank DTML Document? Why would MIE be checking the server for that file? Add this to the many reasons that I hate MIE! J
On Wed, 7 Jun 2000, J. Atwood wrote:
As it looks for this "favicon.ico"
M$ IE is looking for this file to provide some "niceness" on a page. Search Internet for longer explanations - there are many.
Oleg. (All opinions are mine and not of my employer) ---- Oleg Broytmann Foundation for Effective Policies phd@phd.russ.ru Programmers don't die, they just GOSUB without RETURN.
Internet explorer is looking for an favicon.ico or a custom icon file that customizes your bookmark entry into a users book mark list. If you get an icon editor and make a custom icon 16x16, I think, icon then you can put it in your home directory and when someone bookmarks the site they will see your cute little icon in their bookmarks. Now that you have done this, you have to put it in every directory accessible to IE to prevent excessive logging of errors on your server. ----- Original Message ----- From: "J. Atwood" <jatwood@bwanazulia.com> To: <phd@phd.russ.ru> Cc: <zope@zope.org> Sent: Wednesday, June 07, 2000 1:33 PM Subject: Re: [Zope] What is "favicon.ico" and why is it an error?
So even though there are no references to it in the HTML MIE is looking for it? Is there anyway to fool it? Can I just put a blank DTML Document? Why would MIE be checking the server for that file?
Add this to the many reasons that I hate MIE!
J
On Wed, 7 Jun 2000, J. Atwood wrote:
As it looks for this "favicon.ico"
M$ IE is looking for this file to provide some "niceness" on a page. Search Internet for longer explanations - there are many.
Oleg. (All opinions are mine and not of my employer) ---- Oleg Broytmann Foundation for Effective Policies phd@phd.russ.ru Programmers don't die, they just GOSUB without RETURN.
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"J. Michael Mc Kay" wrote:
Now that you have done this, you have to put it in every directory accessible to IE to prevent excessive logging of errors on your server.
Did someone say 'acquisition'? You could just have one icon in the root folder and let it be acquired :-) As to what this icon is for: Fire up IE and go to the bookmarks menu. See those little icons? That's favicon. If one isn't found, the default one is used. You have two choices: Put up with the errors and stick to your principles, or do a bitmap and sell your soul ;-) It makes little to no difference to IE users... cheers, Chris
On Wed, 7 Jun 2000, J. Atwood wrote:
So even though there are no references to it in the HTML MIE is looking for it? Is there anyway to fool it? Can I just put a blank DTML Document? Why would MIE be checking the server for that file?
Becasue if it finds the file in a directory it would display it - and site admin could put different icons in different directories. Return error 404 should be enough, if there is no such files. Oleg. (All opinions are mine and not of my employer) ---- Oleg Broytmann Foundation for Effective Policies phd@phd.russ.ru Programmers don't die, they just GOSUB without RETURN.
Thanks for the help Oleg, So, does the user get an error page or is the server just sending me an error cause it is requesting a file that does not exist. I will try testing with IT (it is not effecting my Mac IE 4.5/5.0) J
From: Oleg Broytmann <phd@phd.russ.ru> Reply-To: phd@phd.russ.ru Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2000 17:47:27 +0000 (GMT) To: "J. Atwood" <jatwood@bwanazulia.com> Cc: zope@zope.org Subject: Re: [Zope] What is "favicon.ico" and why is it an error?
On Wed, 7 Jun 2000, J. Atwood wrote:
So even though there are no references to it in the HTML MIE is looking for it? Is there anyway to fool it? Can I just put a blank DTML Document? Why would MIE be checking the server for that file?
Becasue if it finds the file in a directory it would display it - and site admin could put different icons in different directories. Return error 404 should be enough, if there is no such files.
Oleg. (All opinions are mine and not of my employer) ---- Oleg Broytmann Foundation for Effective Policies phd@phd.russ.ru Programmers don't die, they just GOSUB without RETURN.
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On Wed, 07 Jun 2000 13:58:42 -0400, "J. Atwood" <jatwood@bwanazulia.com> wrote:
So, does the user get an error page or is the server just sending me an error cause it is requesting a file that does not exist. I will try testing with IT (it is not effecting my Mac IE 4.5/5.0)
The user wont see error; just the default icon in the favorites menu.
Add this to the many reasons that I hate MIE!
do you have a robots.txt, or are webcrawlers evil too? ;-) J. Michael Mc Kay wrote
Now that you have done this, you have to put it in every directory accessible to IE to prevent excessive logging of errors on your server.
Is that true? I undestand only the root directory is necessary, unless you have specifically linked another icon file from your html. Toby Dickenson tdickenson@geminidataloggers.com
At 9:43 AM +0100 6/9/2000, Toby Dickenson wrote:
The user wont see error; just the default icon in the favorites menu.
You are correct. They don't see the error but it still produces a Zope error.
Add this to the many reasons that I hate MIE!
do you have a robots.txt, or are webcrawlers evil too? ;-)
This, on the other hand, does not product a Zope error, just is logged as a 404. It is also useful in keeping search engines away from certain areas of your site. The favicon.ico trick really has no use, no functionality, no deeming qualities. M$ also did it in a bitmap as opposed to a jpg/gif which makes it much bigger than it should be. It also tells the server that a user has bookmarked your site, which to some users might seem like yet another breach of privacy. J
On Wed, Jun 07, 2000 at 04:10:03PM +0100, Chris Withers wrote:
Michael Bernstein wrote:
As I recall (from a WebObjects demonstartion I sat through a long time ago), WO creates the most godawful mangled URLs that I had ever seen. As a result, a WO site cannot be spidered by search engines, or converted to a static copy using wget.
Zope's not too hot on this either what with index_html instead of index.html the problem of "is /something' a 'file' or a 'folder' from wget's point of view?"
Well, to be honest, that was the thing that got me interested in Bobo at the first place: I had a few looks at WebObjects when it was hot stuff in the NeXT scene, but Bobo's concept of mapping object containment directly to the URL path seemed much more natural. WebObjects doesn't try to make the path look readable. A WebObjects application was just like a NEXTSTEP application, only that the GUI was rendered in web browsers. WebObjects treated HTTP and URLs like a sort of alternative communication protocol, just like X11 or DPS--it was quite a slick concept for a quick start in E-Commerce to be honest. Bobo applications seemed to be somewhere in the middle: They looked like traditional static web servers, but had the potential of WebObjects.
IIRC, it currently would download a zope folder object as a single file :(
I've also been bitten by this in Wiki's since links aren't generated with absolute_url and so I sometimes get /MyWikiFolder/OneWikiPage/AnotherWikiPage which throws up a nasty __getitem__ exception (particularly in Netscape, which seems to like appending / onto the end of FrontPage in the URL box...)
Yep. Like the "map" link. I wished "Entire XYZWiki Contents" would always link to the same URL in the root folder of the Wiki. Currently it links to CurrentWikiPage/map. Not too friendly to offline browsing as well. Regarding wget: AFAICS, the problem is that traditionally in a static web server, if you try to access a URL like 'http://host/xyz' (without trailing slash), the server will return you an error '301 Moved permanently' and will point you to the new location 'http://host/xyz/'. Zope instead (if 'xyz' is a folder and there's a document 'xyz/index_html') immediately returns the rendered index_html if you request 'http://host/xyz'. Now whenever the 301 to the URL with a trailing slash happens, wget takes this as a hint that this path must have been a directory, and saves the result as index.html. With Zope, wget doesn't get this hint. Reading this again, I wonder if this qualifies as a bug in Zope, or is there a good reason for this behavior ? Gregor
Gregor Hoffleit wrote:
Regarding wget:
AFAICS, the problem is that traditionally in a static web server, if you try to access a URL like 'http://host/xyz' (without trailing slash), the server will return you an error '301 Moved permanently' and will point you to the new location 'http://host/xyz/'. Zope instead (if 'xyz' is a folder and there's a document 'xyz/index_html') immediately returns the rendered index_html if you request 'http://host/xyz'.
Now whenever the 301 to the URL with a trailing slash happens, wget takes this as a hint that this path must have been a directory, and saves the result as index.html. With Zope, wget doesn't get this hint.
Reading this again, I wonder if this qualifies as a bug in Zope, or is there a good reason for this behavior ?
It's not so much a bug as a complication caused by the fact that Zope isn't a filesystem server, but an orb presented through the web (correct me if I'm slightly out ;-) For example http://host/x/y/z Could be: -A container object z (which should have a / after it?) -A dtml-document in folder /x/y/ -The result of executing the z method on the y object in the /x/ folder. -The result of executing the z method on the result of executing the y method on the x object in the root folder. I'm sure acquisition adds some more options/confusions to this... ;-) So, that's the problem, I don't know what the solution is :( I do think there must be a better way than Zope's kludgey BASE tag thing. Maybe all Zope URLs should end in a / ? Quite radical, but maybe the most sensible and least confusing? :/ cheers, Chris
Chris Withers wrote:
Michael Bernstein wrote:
As I recall (from a WebObjects demonstartion I sat through a long time ago), WO creates the most godawful mangled URLs that I had ever seen. As a result, a WO site cannot be spidered by search engines, or converted to a static copy using wget.
Zope's not too hot on this either what with index_html instead of index.html the problem of "is /something' a 'file' or a 'folder' from wget's point of view?"
Wget would regard /something as a file. bur it would regard /something/ as a default document in a folder.
IIRC, it currently would download a zope folder object as a single file :(
I've also been bitten by this in Wiki's since links aren't generated with absolute_url and so I sometimes get /MyWikiFolder/OneWikiPage/AnotherWikiPage which throws up a nasty __getitem__ exception (particularly in Netscape, which seems to like appending / onto the end of FrontPage in the URL box...)
This sounds like a Wiki problem rather than a Zope problem. As Zope will access /something and /something/ the same, it's trivial to make sure that all URLs that link to an object include a trailing /. Wget assumes that when it crawls to a something/ location that it is accessing the default file for the directory, so it saves the resulting page as something/index.html . Whatever webserver you use can be set to regard index.html as the default file, so the link (which is still pointing to /something/) will work just fine. The only problem crops up with inline links that don't conform to the /something/ format. All automatically generated links (as in navigation bars) on the sites I create end with a trailing /. Cheers, Michael Bernstein.
participants (9)
-
Chris Withers -
Gregor Hoffleit -
J. Atwood -
J. Michael Mc Kay -
Jason Cunliffe -
Luciano Ramalho -
Michael Bernstein -
Oleg Broytmann -
Toby Dickenson