[Zope] WebObjects

[Luciano Ramalho]

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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