Nice write-up Taher. Yes, your thoughts are making sense to me. I would like to add one more point from my side is, using DSL make learning curve steeper for the newbies to the framework.
Thanks and Regards -- Pritam Kute On Mon, Sep 4, 2017 at 3:50 PM, Taher Alkhateeb <slidingfilame...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hello everyone, > > I've been thinking for a few weeks about this topic, so I thought I'd > just share my thoughts here. > > OFBiz has great DSL, it is a blessing, it makes things easier > OFBiz has great DSL, it is a curse, it makes things sloppy > > I think OFBiz is unique and it's rare to find software projects where > non-programmers can participate. It makes the pool of participants > bigger. But there is a price to pay in terms of quality. > > problem > ----------- > > OFBiz has too much DSL. The amount of XML in the code base makes > everything else looks tiny in comparison. As many programmers know, a > DSL (Domain Specific Language) is just a tool to make certain things > easier / faster. It is not _the_ solution for everything. In many > frameworks that I use when things get too complicated I drop down to > programming because the DSL hits certain limits and becomes a pain to > deal with. > > When we write everything at a high level (DSL) we can accomplish a > lot, but the drawbacks include: > - Verbosity > - Copy-paste patterns > - Repetition due to inability to reuse > - Inflexible architecture: > - services do not compose > - debugging becomes hard > - reusability is low > - modularity is low > > proposed direction > -------------------------- > > We have a word in the community: "Functional". We mean by this word a > person who is familiar with the entity model of OFBiz and understands > how the system works through the DSL but has limited or no ability to > program in a general purpose programming language. Many times when we > hit an architectural problem, a solution at the programming language > level can be as dramatic as 1% the size of the DSL solution and maybe > 100 times faster. It can also be cleaner and more re-usable. > > I think maybe part of the solution is to encourage some of our > "Functional" community members to embrace and enhance their > programming skills and not settle for only functional knowledge. > Examples for doing that: > - Embrace Java, it's the number 1 programming language on the planet > - Maybe attend basic coding lessons if possible > - Read online, plenty for resources > - Ask for help, from my experience people _love_ giving it here in the ASF > - Before writing a custom widget, think, maybe you can resolve it with > an FTL macro and make a root solution for many other widgets > - Before repeating a CRUD service for the 100th time, think, maybe you > can factor out common code into a nice Java service with parameters. > - Why not replace all this wiring of events, services and ECAs and > very complex route with a simple single service? > > Do i make sense? Sorry if babbled a lot, and congratulations if you > made it to this line :) I'd love to hear your thoughts. > > Cheers, > > Taher Alkhateeb >
