I would agree with everything Joe says here. Plum certainly has it's place in the market. How big that place is I don't know, but I'm sure a lot of people will find it useful to them.
Having written a few frameworks myself and used quite a few others I know what works for me and a fundamental requirement is that ease of maintenance should be a primary consideration for all aspects of the application. That's why I share Joe's concerns about the commingling of display and business logic. If any application logic has to be repeated in multiple places maintenance becomes more difficult, but often the only way to avoid that is to build abstraction into the core of the application. Unfortunately Plum doesn't really allow for much in the way of abstraction and actively gets in the way in a lot of cases. The downside of all that abstraction is that it takes more time and effort to get the thing built in the first place, and documenting the application becomes more important. If you get it right though, it *always* seems to pay for itself in the long run. The market reality is that a lot of people could care less about abstraction of logic and building for maintenance. They have app requirements and they need the app done quickly. Often, even if they do have the time to build the app, they often don't have the experience to know what will work and what won't. Without having your fingers burnt by experience a few times it is very difficult to know beforehand whether an approach is a good one or not. This, of course is only opinion based on *my* experience, not fact. If you disagree you no doubt have your own reasons and I'm certainly not going to tell you you're wrong. Unless you're working for me of course ;) Spike Joe Rinehart wrote: > Adam, > > I'm not trying to attack Plum. If I was, I'd say something silly and > offensive. My observations come after using Plum, trying it out, and > taking some of its guts apart. > > >>The way it works, >>what it contains, how applications are organized, and how Plum applications >>are written. > > > The way it works simply isn't what I'd find ideal. There's so > seperation of logic - a page is responsible for both is view and its > business logic, making that an "atomic capsule." If Plum generated > data access and possibly business object CFCs for the tables it > represented, and its tags instead used those, I could then at least > reuse the business logic and data access portions elsewhere without > having to reinvent the wheel. > > This is a step backwards from the point of frameworks like Fusebox and > Mach-II, and is exactly why Plum can be compared to neither. Plum > generates code that maintains a status quo of spaghetti code, > requiring custom business logic to be spread throughout the > presentation layer. > > >>Please, before you go spreading FUD due to a lack of understanding, please >>either seriously learn about the product > > > I'm not spreading unfounded FUD - I've looked at your product in fair > depth. I'm not going to delve into a technical discussion of its > mechanics, but I've examined them in detail. > > I've been using Plum since the first public beta. I haven't done > anything terribly complicated with it, but I've built some basic CRUD > and master/detail applications with verity searching, and played with > content management, which is what I imagine most Plum users would find > to be about their extend of its use. > > >>Try not to prejudice others who haven't even looked yet. > > > Anyone who puts a product into the open marketplace must expect find > opinions contrary their own marketing. As some say, "any publicity > is good publicity." > > As I said earlier, "I can see Plum being useful for basic, CRUD > applications." And I can. It's mind-numbingly easy to create simple > or master/detail CRUD app. However, what I think is missing is a > plug-in point where I can add business logic to my business units > without having to continually reinvent the wheel. I really think Plum > could be quite powerful if it looked into using CFC-based > representations of the tables it acted upon. > > This is a complete aside, but shouldn't the "owner" of generated code > be the developer using it? As it is, every generated page comes out > "This code is Copyright (c) 2004 by Productivity Enhancement, Inc." > I'm not sure if you meant to do this, but the legal implications of > this are enough to bar me from commercial use. > > With respect, > > Joe > > -- -- -------------------------------------------- Stephen Milligan Code poet for hire http://www.spike.org.uk Do you cfeclipse? http://cfeclipse.tigris.org ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Find out how CFTicket can increase your company's customer support efficiency by 100% http://www.houseoffusion.com/banners/view.cfm?bannerid=49 Message: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=i:4:195260 Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/threads.cfm/4 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=s:4 Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.4 Donations & Support: http://www.houseoffusion.com/tiny.cfm/54
