Re: Swing Application Framework Dead
Arne Vajh??j wrote:
Jeff Higgins wrote:
Jan Burse wrote:
Well one could opt for heavy frameworks such
as Eclipse etc..
What metrics describe the weight of an application framework?
De facto:
lightweight = our product
heavyweight = competitors product
What it should be:
You have already gotten a couple of suggestions for:
weight = level of functionality = level of complexity
I am not sure that this "absolute" measurement is
what people typical see as semantics.
I think that a "relative" measurement fits better:
weight = level of functionality or complexity provided / level of
functionality or complexity necessary to support
Let me clarify with an example:
I consider a Java library with methods implementing
10000 mathematical function with no dependencies to
be lighter than a Java component exposing only 3 methods that require:
* an EJB container
* a message queue
* an Oracle database (due to some PL/SQL SP bing used)
I tend to agree with Arne's characterization of the terms, and Arved's.
I value Arne's view because it's rooted in ops - "operations" - the area of
build, test and deployment that tends to be messy and labor intensive.
Big-iron shops devote a lot of manpower (i.e., money) to people just running
the systems. The more you mix frameworks with each other, like the app server
with message queues with database with stored procedures with probably JPA and
JMX present in abundance, the more you have to manage to get everything to
play nicely together.
This notion of weight pertains to the programmer, too. It's not all on ops'
shoulders. You work on, say, a JSF application with some Ajax magic and
various auxiliary frameworks for authorization levels in the front end, and
even within just that layer the interactions create effort and careful thought
to manage properly. Similar dangers pertain in the deeper layers - JPA even
within its own universe requires simple idioms to stay light; its dark
corners, exploited fecklessly, can radically complicate analysis of consequences.
An intuitive sense of the integral of (labor times intensity of attention)
over time is what I think of as "weight" in a system.
--
Lew
Honi soit qui mal y pense.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/Friz.jpg