just posted some thoughts on tapestry and its future

[Warner Onstine <sw...@warneronstine.com>]

This is something that I've been thinking about for a while and wrote  
a blog post about why I think Tapestry hasn't seen greater adoption,  
I would like to encourage all who are interested in commenting (or  
just reading) to visit my blog.

I would like this to be a constructive discussion, so please no  
flames ;-).

http://jroller.com/page/WarnerOnstine?entry=why_hasn_t_tapestry_been

-warner

Warner Onstine - Programmer/Author
New book! Tapestry 101 available at http://sourcebeat.com/books/ 
tapestrylive.html
warner@warneronstine.com
http://warneronstine.com/blog




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Re: just posted some thoughts on tapestry and its future

[Norman Franke <no...@myasd.com>]

Good thoughts, indeed. One thing I didn't see is related to the  
learning curve.

While Tapestry initially had the reputation has hard to learn, I've  
not really found that to be the case with 4.0.2. (At least after  
reading "Enjoying Web Development with Tapestry") However, the lack  
of good documentation is hindering the learning and adoption, IMHO.

While the components are documented (http://tapestry.apache.org/ 
tapestry4/) and there is a nice JavaDoc of the API, I've found it  
hard to find documentation on the rest. Tapestry is more than just  
web components. Some examples:

1. What all can one extend or implement for a page? (BasePage,  
PageBeginRenderListener, IExternalPage, etc.) A concise list of these  
with examples would be really handy.

2. All the support classes, e.g. ILinkRenderer, ServiceEncoder,  
ValidationDelegate, etc. I can find documentation on many if I know  
what I'm looking for, but when starting out, I have no idea.

3. A nice list of what's available to inject via HiveMind. It must  
have taken me over an hour to find about injecting an "app-property".  
Thanks to the aforementioned book, I already knew about "ognl:beans"  
and "ognl:components" for properties in the .page file, but the whole  
Tapestry HiveMind object space would be really handy to have documented.

Basically, the scattered nature of the documentation makes it hard to  
get my app to do what I want. There may be documentation for much of  
this, but I can't find it easily...

Some pluses, integrating an existing servlet app with Tapestry is  
very easy (once you know about IExternalPage). Authentication doesn't  
seem to be addressed in 4.0.2, but it integrates very well with  
SecurityFilter (that my servlet has been using for 5 years or so)  
after going to friendly URLs and disabling forwarding /app to the  
servlet.)

Norman Franke
www.myasd.com

On May 19, 2007, at 10:44 PM, Warner Onstine wrote:

> This is something that I've been thinking about for a while and  
> wrote a blog post about why I think Tapestry hasn't seen greater  
> adoption, I would like to encourage all who are interested in  
> commenting (or just reading) to visit my blog.
>
> I would like this to be a constructive discussion, so please no  
> flames ;-).
>
> http://jroller.com/page/WarnerOnstine?entry=why_hasn_t_tapestry_been
>
> -warner



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Re: just posted some thoughts on tapestry and its future

[Howard Lewis Ship <hl...@gmail.com>]

And they are very good thoughts.

There won't be a Tapestry 6.  The design of Tapestry 5 is to create the
stability you call for in your blog posting.

The essence of Tapestry for me is that there is a fundamental germ of an
idea encapsulated in the code and the design, and it's a powerful and
compelling idea.  Tapestry 1 through Tapestry 4 approached that idea and
made it possible for many users to leverage it, but minor flaws in the
implementation grew overwhelming, especially in terms of "coloring outside
the lines".

My skill as a designer, as a coder, and (I hope) as an evangelist have all
grown over the last few years, possibly as I've been exposed to other great
developers (via the No Fluff Just Stuff conferences) and, through teaching
Tapesry, to more actual users.  My goal is to have something overwhelmingly
compelling for new users, who are suffering under Struts and JSF, and for
existing users (who need to make a transition from T4 to T5).  The feedback
I've been getting from my actual, paying clients is very positive, which
keeps me motivated.

On 5/19/07, Warner Onstine <sw...@warneronstine.com> wrote:
>
> This is something that I've been thinking about for a while and wrote
> a blog post about why I think Tapestry hasn't seen greater adoption,
> I would like to encourage all who are interested in commenting (or
> just reading) to visit my blog.
>
> I would like this to be a constructive discussion, so please no
> flames ;-).
>
> http://jroller.com/page/WarnerOnstine?entry=why_hasn_t_tapestry_been
>
> -warner
>
> Warner Onstine - Programmer/Author
> New book! Tapestry 101 available at http://sourcebeat.com/books/
> tapestrylive.html
> warner@warneronstine.com
> http://warneronstine.com/blog
>
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscribe@tapestry.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: users-help@tapestry.apache.org
>
>


-- 
Howard M. Lewis Ship
TWD Consulting, Inc.
Independent J2EE / Open-Source Java Consultant
Creator and PMC Chair, Apache Tapestry
Creator, Apache HiveMind

Professional Tapestry training, mentoring, support
and project work.  http://howardlewisship.com