IBM Releases SashXB

IBM has released SashXB for the Open Source community. SashXB is Weblication Development Environment (a.k.a. the WDE), so you can use it to write "weblications". From the screenshots it looks pretty impressive, and there is a Lotus Notes Client included written with this tool. The license ig LGPL.

Comments

Wow !

[mirko]

1. Lotus Notes Client is excellent to convince managers to let people use an alternative to Windows (I had this problem 2 years ago with a Fortune100 company).
2. This and StarOffice confirm that Linux slowly gain acceptance as a desktop OS.
3. LGPL is not bad in this case as IBM is a serious brand.
4. Choosing Gnome is not a bad point though I hope WDE will be uasable under other environments, though.
5. Now, I just want to see how clean the generated code is but until then: Two Thumbs Up, IBM!

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Re:what's this exactly?

[MartinG]

I just found this on their mailing list:

> Can anyone point to a coherent explaination of what
> Sash can offer on Linux, and what it's parts are?
>

This question is probably going to be asked a lot, so I guess we should
start creating a FAQ somewhere.

Anyway. This is of course by no means an official position on anything;
these are just my thoughts.

The Sash end-user gets:
* Painless installation (no command line necessary -- straight from the
browser to the [graphical] installer).
* One-click uninstallation, with recursive dependency checking to prevent
the removal of vital components.
* A point and click interface for the execution and management of all of
his weblications
* Automatic updating of programs/extensions (this is in the works)
* Tiny download sizes for native, fully functional weblications
* Highly componentized infrastructure avoids bloatware -- a program only
fetches and loads exactly what it needs to run.
* Tight security controls every single thing a weblication tries to do

The Sash developer gets:
[from a structural point of view]
* Rapid deployment and easy management of programs
* Powerful native functionality without having to learn a new skill set
(provided that he already knows JavaScript and HTML)

[from a design point of view]
* Ridiculously easy drag-and-drop design for his weblication's UI
* Painless integration of UI with SashScript
* A full-featured IDE which takes him from start to finish in creating a
weblication, including:
- syntax highlighting
- syntax assistance (a la Microsoft's Intellisense)
- multiple document/multiple window interface
- Druids (wizards) which aid in the creation of any given action,
or in the creation of the weblication as a whole

I'm sure there are more features which I am missing right now.

Yeah, this sounds terribly hokey, but it's actually true. We've created a
sample text editor, a web browser, even a simple Lotus Notes mail client
(as demos), each in about an hour, start-to-finish.

Man, I really do sound like a salesman ;).

As for parts, perhaps that's for another email. There are two main parts:
the runtime, which runs the weblications, and the WDE (development
environment) which aids developers in writing weblications. For more info,
check out the README.* files in the source tree...

AJ