Comments on: Ajax meet OSGi: Expanding Universes Collide with Eclipse RAP 1.0

By: Jochen Krause

Jochen Krause — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 08:22:50 +0000

The building analogy is really great! If you want to build a really fancy building go for steel and glass, but you need to be able to afford it, and have a team with the right skills (no bricklayers). Tools will only help so much. Most other buildings are still build “conventionally”. Conventional buildings are now much easier to build with the combination of brick (or wood or concrete) and steel. Throwing the “old stuff” away is often not the best option.
It is great that you want to enable web developers to build the best ajax apps, but I can’t see anything wrong in enabling java developers to do the same.

By: Jochen Krause

Jochen Krause — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 08:07:57 +0000

Hi Jep, if you have standardized on a JavaScript framework (that is not qooxdoo) it is difficult to integrate with RAP. You can absolutely add existing JS into RAP as components, but combining frameworks is probably not worth the effort. If you are a Java shop I would however recommend having a look at OSGi (Equinox), as it is a great way to componentize your backend.

By: c keene

c keene — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 21:50:49 +0000

When builders first started using steel, they built brick buildings that had steel supports. That incremental approach made sense for existing builders, but it came nowhere near utilizing steel to its fullest potential.

In a similar way, Silverlight, Apollo and RAP are trying to make a rich web interface look just like a PC client interface. There is nothing wrong with this, but it is a way to make the future look like the past. One thing we know for sure about the future is that it rarely looks like the past….

By: David

David — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 09:23:09 +0000

A nice getting started screencast on RAP:
http://www.thescreencast.com/2007/10/first-look-at-eclipse-rich-ajax.html

By: c keene

c keene — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 20:53:48 +0000

Let’s see – RAP supports SWT, doesn’t support css – what’s Ajax-ian about that? This seems like a Borg-like attempt to assimilate Ajax into the heavyweight Java development environment that is Eclipse. I posted my response here:

http://www.keeneview.com/2007/10/ajax-needs-eclipse-like-hole-in-head.html

By: Jep Castelein

Jep Castelein — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 20:39:36 +0000

@ Jochen: Let’s say I’ve standardized on a specific client-side Ajax library and I want to use RAP. Is that possible? Can I use Dojo, Ext or Backbase as the client-library? Or doesn’t that make sense because RAD handles client-side events on the server and the client-side engine only provides some widgets? Thanks, Jep

By: Jochen Krause

Jochen Krause — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 14:33:33 +0000

Hi Java2Script team,
salute back for your 1.0 release. It is great to see Eclipse technology adopted in so many open source projects!
Fur us, OSGi is more than an interesting spec – it is what makes Eclipse work. SWT is powerful widget toolkit, but Equinox, the OSGi reference implementation of Eclipse makes the difference when it comes to Eclipse as a platform. The platform has proved to be very powerful as a tooling platform (based on OSGi) and is increasingly successful as an application platform. This is not only on the client, but also on the server (many of the java app servers are using OSGi as their kernel). With RAP we are just complementing the existing Eclipse technology and try to make Equinox a more complete platform for all sort of applications.

By: matthias

matthias — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 13:20:09 +0000

i am also sure, that osgi and ajax both have a big future together. do you have some examples showing Eclipse RAP technology? would be very interesting

By: Zhou Renjian

Zhou Renjian — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 13:16:59 +0000

Salute to RAP from Java2Script team for its 1.0 release. Java2Script, now also 1.0.0, is providing pure JavaScript version of Eclipse SWT library for browser not server side. Java2Script has the same goal with RAP, to provide ways for developers to share the same base of code for products that deploy to the web and the desktop. OSGi may be an interesting specs. But what really interests me is that RAP is for Java developers in the enterprise setting. Yes, we all know that enterprise business matters. And for further thoughts, I find myself just wondering what kind of businesses RAP is pointing at. And this is a tough question for Java2Script too. From my knowledge of other Eclipse projects, such as ATF, GEF, RSE, they all get their dedicated fields and goals very clear. When under comparisons, it seems that RAP is a little vague on fields and goals. RAP's demos tell something about its goals but still not in a clear way ( Well, RAP's demos are not quite fast. And actually, Java2Script's demo is very slow too ). It is also interesting to see that RAP and Java2Script have 2 very similar demos: RAP's RWT Control Demo and Java2Script's SWT Control Examples. BTW: Java2Script do considers providing pure JavaScript JFace and RCP library besides existed JavaScript SWT library, but in near futures.