The Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) has published a paper by David Plans Casal, Director of Research at Luminas entitled "Internet Applications Advanced Software Development for Web Applications (PDF file: 23 pages)". In this paper David tells how the Web has moved far from a simple text and image distribution system to modern sophisticated Web applications.The introduction of Web frameworks somewhat helped by providing coding skeletons upon which systems could be built. The paper has outlined two such frameworks, Apache Cocoon and Ruby On Rails, which, it is argued, offer considerable advantages to developers.
About Rails Dave say:
The paper has 5 main chapters:
The content of the paper might make you curious to read it. Here it is:
1. Introduction
2. What are Web frameworks? A background.
2.1 From static to dynamic
2.1.1 What is a Web application?
2.2 Moving on to enterprise systems: server and client side scripting
2.3 Frameworks
2.4 State of the Art in Web Application Frameworks
3. Issues around the use of Web Application Frameworks in Higher Education
3.1 Learning curve
3.2 Complexity and resources
3.3 Interoperability
3.4 A potential solution
4. Apache Cocoon: XML configuration
4.1 Apache Cocoon architecture overview
4.1.1 Separation of Concerns and contract pyramid
4.1.2 Component pipelines
4.1.3 The sitemap
4.2 In a nutshell
5. Ruby on Rails: no surprises, please
5.1 How Rails works
5.1.1 DRY and Convention over Configuration
5.1.2 Routing (versus sitemapping)
5.2 In a nutshell
6. Looking ahead – Semantic component distribution
6.1 The future of frameworks – reuse and automation
6.2 Semantic Web
6.3 The role of RDF
6.3.1 An early example of RDF 'scrapers': the PiggyBank project
6.3.2 Shared RDF data collected by individuals: Semantic Bank
Conclusion
References
About Rails Dave say:
Ruby and its principle of least surprise give Rails a very real advantage: it makes more use of the language itself, and less use (in comparison to Cocoon or other Java/XML frameworks) of configuration files. In a way, this makes it easier for a developer to immediately understand the gist of an application.
The paper has 5 main chapters:
- What are Web frameworks? A background
- Issues around the use of Web Application Frameworks in Higher Education
- Apache Cocoon: XML configuration
- Ruby on Rails: no surprises, please
- Looking ahead – Semantic component distribution
The content of the paper might make you curious to read it. Here it is:
1. Introduction
2. What are Web frameworks? A background.
2.1 From static to dynamic
2.1.1 What is a Web application?
2.2 Moving on to enterprise systems: server and client side scripting
2.3 Frameworks
2.4 State of the Art in Web Application Frameworks
3. Issues around the use of Web Application Frameworks in Higher Education
3.1 Learning curve
3.2 Complexity and resources
3.3 Interoperability
3.4 A potential solution
4. Apache Cocoon: XML configuration
4.1 Apache Cocoon architecture overview
4.1.1 Separation of Concerns and contract pyramid
4.1.2 Component pipelines
4.1.3 The sitemap
4.2 In a nutshell
5. Ruby on Rails: no surprises, please
5.1 How Rails works
5.1.1 DRY and Convention over Configuration
5.1.2 Routing (versus sitemapping)
5.2 In a nutshell
6. Looking ahead – Semantic component distribution
6.1 The future of frameworks – reuse and automation
6.2 Semantic Web
6.3 The role of RDF
6.3.1 An early example of RDF 'scrapers': the PiggyBank project
6.3.2 Shared RDF data collected by individuals: Semantic Bank
Conclusion
References