WorldOfWebObjects

coexisting installs of WO 5.3/5.4 on Tiger/Leopard?

I am wondering what people think about these (very random) ideas.

I have to admit I have not jumped onto using a Leopard system yet. For one thing, I have midterms, and for another, I am tempted to wait until I can get hardware with Leopard on it (which I probably cannot yet) and get a new laptop with Leopard on it. Then I will be able to transition things over from my current laptop as I desire, and not try to upgrade my somewhat beat-up laptop.

I am pretty sure of some things, some of which are represent competing viewpoints:

1) WO 5.3 is not and will not be supported on Leopard.

2) WO 5.3 works with Java 1.4, which is on Leopard, and so the WO 5.3 runtime should work on Leopard.

3) It has been possible, for quite a while, to have more than one version of WO on a machine, but Apple will never support this. Essentially, the theoretical cost of supporting configuration goes up exponentially, not linearly, with the number of versions on a system. There will never be a reason for Apple to take on the job of supporting a machine that has two different versions of WO. But....

Having no tool support, it should be a lot easier to configure runtimes for multiple versions. Things like soft-linked directory branches work a lot better when they do not have to deal with the ObjC bridge and all its associated noise. Project Wonder, for instance, could include scripts for configuring this. A script could even check the integrity of deployment installs. While at Apple, I wrote a "verify your versions" direct action. Too support-ish and not enough aqua, so not shippable.

4) EOModeler and WebObjects Builder may work on Leopard, but one would have to get the apps and many of their private frameworks over by hand and Apple may have done something to make these apps not launch, or they will launch but be crashy in the extreme. I still use them on Tiger, but I will have to give up on them for Leopard. :-(

Has Apple announced a public API for plugins in Xcode? Probably not. The amusing thing is, Xcode being an ObjC app, there are lots of APIs used by the plugins that Apple has written. That's actually the crux of the biscuit. Each group of people doing a plugin or two has created a new internal API....

I know I should take the time to get comfortable with Eclipse. I just have had other things to do. Like creating WO apps. Sorry.

6) I am willing to bet I can take Xcode templates for WebObjects projects and make them work in Leopard. It should not even be difficult. Project templates are, after all, just a resource. I cannot decide if this is worth any time.

I am sure I will come up with other ideas, some even more useless than some of these, when I actually have a Leopard system. We'll see. I am open to suggestions, question, jibes, innuendoes, catcalls, or anything short of insults. No, insults are ok, too. :-)

happy halloween - ray

posted by Tau Central @ 9:33 AM