Ted Husted wrote:
The big picture is that the presentation layer, whether it's a web
layer or not, needs to know a lot about every property that is exposed
by the application. We need to know the property's
* view name
* view type (String or boolean)
* validation constraints
* default control type
* model name
* model type
* persistence type
* label
* data entry hint
* validation message
* text format (mask)
I expect I'm just groggy, but why does the presentation side need to
know about model/persistence stuff?
But, in no one place do we itemize these facts (and any others I
missed). Instead, we scatter them throughout the application [...]
I know that some people say that we have too much XML in our
applications [...] I'd like to take it a step further
so that we could just say "put form x here", and the rest could be
generated from the object graph and style sheet.
+1
IMHO, there are several problems with XML:
1) Wads of files, each serving a different purpose, instead of a
collective file (which can get big, but that's easy enough to deal with
on any of several layers).
2) XML is a pain; it's difficult to read (for me, anyway). Much of this
can be solved with UI work.
For one project I had a "master XML" file (physically many, but
whatever) from which I generated Torque schema files, JSP pages, Action
base classes, form beans, validation rules, application resources, etc.
On top of this was layered a pseudo-GUI (mostly a property editor) such
that a project stub could be created in minutes.
I think the trick is that we need to stop repeating
ourselves, and provide a central repository where all these facts can
be maintained for all the view properties.
Oh, that would be nice, especially if I didn't have to code JSPs for
every freakin' form/display/etc. Typing sucks, and so far J2EE has made
me do too much of it.
Ideally, I
believe that tit would be helpful
Ah, yes... that it would. Or at least pleasant, if not technically
"helpful."
Oh, typo.
if there were a unified set of
mappings, accessible to each layer, that could describe an entity as
it flows from the database, through an object graph, onto the
presentation layer, and back again. (Or not, if it is a virtual
property.)
One of my primary concerns is that I want as much of the application as
"reasonable" to be accessible to the _developers_ of each layer but
still provide safety. IOW, I want the HTML folks to know what's
available to them on the page and how to use it (c:forEach seems easy to
us, but man... :/ the back-end folks to know what the front-end needs, etc.
All with a whiz-bang interface.
Dave
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