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Posted to user@ofbiz.apache.org by David E Jones <jo...@hotwaxmedia.com> on 2008/01/01 01:08:29 UTC
Re: OfBiz beginner questions
You didn't mention which OFBiz documentation you looked at, but there
are certainly resources that are maintained over time and most of the
older documents are still very applicable in spite of their age (most
of the main patterns and lower level tools in OFBiz haven't changed in
years... ie the framework was mostly complete 2-3 years and only small
additions have been made since).
A good thing to read on tools to use is the Best Practices Guide:
http://docs.ofbiz.org/display/OFBADMIN/Best+Practices+Guide
To understand how those tools work together and see some examples of
using them, you should watch these and explore the supporting diagrams
and documents:
http://docs.ofbiz.org/display/OFBTECH/Framework+Introduction+Videos+and+Diagrams
In general the main documentation repository is the docs.ofbiz.org
site, so that's where I'd start reading:
http://docs.ofbiz.org/
As for the opentaps (or more accurately, Open Source Strategies) way
of doing things: that project is built based on OFBiz, but over time
seems to be turning into more of a fork and they are certainly doing
things differently.
While it is true that alternative open source framework elements exist
for all parts of the OFBiz framework, you'll find the OFBiz way of
doing things is very different, all stemming from using domain-
specific artifacts (mostly elements in XML files) rather than trying
to make EVERYTHING an "object". There is no object-relation mapping in
OFBiz, no object-service mapping, no object-screen or object-form
mapping, or anything like that. Because of this the artifacts are
significantly more efficient to work with and much easier to
understand. There are lots of neat tools for doing all of the object
mappings listed above, like Hibernate for object-relation mapping and
Struts or JSF for object-screen/form/etc mapping, but by avoiding all
of those things the size and redundancy in our code is smaller, and
the flexibility is greater.
Enjoy...
-David
On Dec 31, 2007, at 12:58 PM, Ritz123 wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> Apologize if the question has been asked before.
>
> I have been trying to read up all the available "free" documentation
> and I
> am bit confused.
>
> 1. The documentation for most part seems alteast a year or 2 old and
> doesnt
> seem totally relevent
> 2. Opentaps site has some good practices which contradict the
> development
> model suggested by OfBiz.
> http://www.opentaps.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=56&Itemid=82
> They recommend not to use screens, widgets etc.
>
> I would like to know the "Best Practises" for ecommerce site
> development
> using OfBiz. I totally understand the difference between the
> application
> development using Ofbiz and extending ofbiz itself. What I would
> like to
> know is whether its more productive to use Spring or any other UI
> framework
> rather than using screen and widgets etc. Seems like Entity engine and
> Service engines should be used.
>
> Also, is there an up to date documentation? paid or otherwise that
> will
> help with application (ecommerce site development) using OfBiz?
>
> Thanks in advance
> --
> View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/OfBiz-beginner-questions-tp14561529p14561529.html
> Sent from the OFBiz - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>
Re: OfBiz beginner questions
Posted by Ritz123 <ri...@gmail.com>.
I looked at all the Ofbiz documentation links from the main documentation
link/wiki/opensourcestrategies.
I guess its debatable whether everything configuration or convention is
better. As always mixture of the two would be an ideal choice.
To me Ofbiz seems like it has bit too much configuration. It offers
flexibility but its really difficult to remember all tags/attributes and
their relation with other XML file entries etc, especially if you are a
programmer you would rather code things than specify complex XML document
relationships.
If you guys are taking inputs for the next version or otherwise for Ofbiz, I
would like to vote for convention over configuration.
David E Jones wrote:
>
>
> You didn't mention which OFBiz documentation you looked at, but there
> are certainly resources that are maintained over time and most of the
> older documents are still very applicable in spite of their age (most
> of the main patterns and lower level tools in OFBiz haven't changed in
> years... ie the framework was mostly complete 2-3 years and only small
> additions have been made since).
>
> A good thing to read on tools to use is the Best Practices Guide:
>
> http://docs.ofbiz.org/display/OFBADMIN/Best+Practices+Guide
>
> To understand how those tools work together and see some examples of
> using them, you should watch these and explore the supporting diagrams
> and documents:
>
> http://docs.ofbiz.org/display/OFBTECH/Framework+Introduction+Videos+and+Diagrams
>
> In general the main documentation repository is the docs.ofbiz.org
> site, so that's where I'd start reading:
>
> http://docs.ofbiz.org/
>
> As for the opentaps (or more accurately, Open Source Strategies) way
> of doing things: that project is built based on OFBiz, but over time
> seems to be turning into more of a fork and they are certainly doing
> things differently.
>
> While it is true that alternative open source framework elements exist
> for all parts of the OFBiz framework, you'll find the OFBiz way of
> doing things is very different, all stemming from using domain-
> specific artifacts (mostly elements in XML files) rather than trying
> to make EVERYTHING an "object". There is no object-relation mapping in
> OFBiz, no object-service mapping, no object-screen or object-form
> mapping, or anything like that. Because of this the artifacts are
> significantly more efficient to work with and much easier to
> understand. There are lots of neat tools for doing all of the object
> mappings listed above, like Hibernate for object-relation mapping and
> Struts or JSF for object-screen/form/etc mapping, but by avoiding all
> of those things the size and redundancy in our code is smaller, and
> the flexibility is greater.
>
> Enjoy...
>
> -David
>
>
> On Dec 31, 2007, at 12:58 PM, Ritz123 wrote:
>
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> Apologize if the question has been asked before.
>>
>> I have been trying to read up all the available "free" documentation
>> and I
>> am bit confused.
>>
>> 1. The documentation for most part seems alteast a year or 2 old and
>> doesnt
>> seem totally relevent
>> 2. Opentaps site has some good practices which contradict the
>> development
>> model suggested by OfBiz.
>> http://www.opentaps.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=56&Itemid=82
>> They recommend not to use screens, widgets etc.
>>
>> I would like to know the "Best Practises" for ecommerce site
>> development
>> using OfBiz. I totally understand the difference between the
>> application
>> development using Ofbiz and extending ofbiz itself. What I would
>> like to
>> know is whether its more productive to use Spring or any other UI
>> framework
>> rather than using screen and widgets etc. Seems like Entity engine and
>> Service engines should be used.
>>
>> Also, is there an up to date documentation? paid or otherwise that
>> will
>> help with application (ecommerce site development) using OfBiz?
>>
>> Thanks in advance
>> --
>> View this message in context:
>> http://www.nabble.com/OfBiz-beginner-questions-tp14561529p14561529.html
>> Sent from the OFBiz - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>>
>
>
>
>
--
View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/OfBiz-beginner-questions-tp14561529p14583226.html
Sent from the OFBiz - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com.