[DUG] Toolsets (was Re: Company closing)

[Jolyon Smith]

Similarly chiming in...

The best tool for ploughing a field isn't the best tool for turning the soil
in a flower bed, or even an allotment.

The best tool (and/or GUI framework) for building Windows apps isn't
necessarily the best tool for building Cocoa apps.

What we need is a Delphi for Cocoa.

What we *don't* need is a Delphi (or a VCL) for a Lowest Common Denominator
that fits Windows and Mac and Linux and phones and toasters and key-fobs.



Re: Morfik - I too was interested and had a look even before it was free,
and looked again once it became so.  But I found it too prescriptive for me
and frankly gave up when it balked at my desire to create a project whose
source files happened to be located on a removable USB drive.  Morfik itself
doesn't care, but the Firebird database that it *insists* on creating with
the project cannot be opened from such a drive and so therefore neither can
the project itself.

I did spend some time with a project created on a fixed drive, but again,
whilst the UI model it employs is convenient, it is similarly too
prescriptive - when developing "great" web apps, imho you need a little more
control over the UI that app presents, unless your idea of what looks like a
great web app happily coincides/can be produced with Morfik's ideas and
capabilities.

This is not a unique problem to Morfik of course - any framework that
dictates/imposes itself has the same problem (unless it's *not* a problem in
your particular case, of course).

And as long as you can live with the risk that your framework might at some
point become unsupported, and can be sure that your app can be hosted by
anyone anywhere without needing specific support for tech that your
framework demands (can Morfik projects be completely detached from a
Firebird DB?)


If I am interested in developing web apps, I will use a tool that is great
at developing web apps, as much as the idea might appeal, I don't think it
necessarily makes sense to try to shoe-horn/mimic a tool that is great for
developing DESKTOP apps into a web app development harness.

Just as I wouldn't hook up a tractor and plough in order to weed my hardy
perennials.

:)