Naked Objects Version 1.0 Released

Rober Matthews writes "Naked Objects is an open-source Java-based framework that makes it easy to develop business systems from 'naked objects' - behaviourally complete business objects that are exposed directly to the user. By simply writing Java classes that represent the business entities, and including only business behaviour, this framework provides a unique user interface that allows the user to directly manipulate the objects, and a mechanism to automatically persist them. See nakedobjects.org for details."

Comments

Demoed it...

[roblight]

...and didn't like it.

Heavily OO (lots of drag and drop with mouse movements which is slow IMHO) at the expense of the end user, which they say they avoid somehow:

The idea of auto-generating the user interface from the business model definition is not new, but the resulting user interfaces have often been poor in terms of usability. Critics say that this approach is merely making life easier for the programmer at the expense of the user. We believe that the naked objects approach avoids such criticism. We do not mean that the user interface of a naked object system scores highly on every aspect of usability. However, we do argue that naked object systems are overall more usable than most traditional systems, even those where a great deal of attention has been paid to usability. This derives from the fact that object-oriented user interfaces better match the way that most people think about the tasks they are performing.

I disagree with their assertion that OO UIs are a better match. Programmatically maybe, but I don't think it lends itself well to efficient user interaction. I encourage people to download the demo and run through the user stories. I think you'll quickly understand what I mean about its inefficiencies.

I'm still investigating the Millstone user interface library for development of networked Java applications that was posted in a eariler article. This seems like the type of framework I've been looking for: the ability to swap in-and-out different presentation layers without affecting the business logic (classic MVC pattern).

Re:Demoed it...

[scrytch]

Drag and drop, bad. But I don't know about the GUI being so inherently bad. I mean look at the current awful mess, where you have to write descriptors and access methods and implement interfaces all over the place, put this xml file here, package it up there, and so on. So what does one do to get away from this mess? They usually use something fairly pointy-clicky to build their EJB's instead, and/or they use an XML editor that's also fairly visual.

I like to think I'm a quick learner, but the massive amount of crap one has to do by hand to do anything worthwhile in J2EE makes me feel just completely overwhelmed and stupid. I'd rather write code than spend all my time with the bloody scaffolding that an application server is supposed to be doing its damn self. Hot deployment and autocompilation are making servlets as easy as CGI now, but EJB and CMP have a long way to go before I want to stop throwing up my hands and write a solution from scratch in perl in less time and with about 1/100th of the code.

Re:Demoed it...

[Rick the Red]

Same as the user doesn't want to see how a car works. The user only wants to use the car, and to be spared the gory details.

Maybe the user doesn't want to know how a car works, but that doesn't mean they "can be spared the gory details" before they're allowed to use it. It's thinking like that which leads to bozos (appologies to Bozo) assuming that because their SUV can go in the snow it can also stop in the snow (clue for the clueless: it can't).

And it's thinking like that which leads to Customer Service calls asking why the change they just submitted at your web page wasn't instantly implemented in their account. If they understood how your system works (their request is queued up along with those of hundreds of other customers, and will be processed -- in order received -- in a few minutes) they probably wouldn't call.

OS/2 WorkPlaceShell

[trajano]

Actually this system looks something like the WorkPlaceShell of OS/2. I actually liked the system when I was using OS/2 a while back, it was quite interesting but programming for it using C (or even C++) was fairly complicated with all the resource files and other language "extensions".

Since this is written in Java it may be easier to develop than it was in OS/2.

Hopefully there won't be any copyright violations.

Questions

[Hard_Code]

The first thing that screams out to me is:

SECURITY SECURITY SECURITY

Let's hope this has a sophisticated security API (could not tell from either web site or manual). Otherwise your security is reduced to the "security" of visibility levels of methods (i.e. none).

The second question is, can a website be autogenerated instead of a Swing GUI? Nobody wants to drop apps down to the client. Otherwise, very interesting idea.

javapro article

[fuzzbrain]

There was a good article about Naked Objects in java pro last April. It's an interesting idea I think, maybe not for final-products but allowing end-users to see something early on so they can get a better idea as to what they really need in the end product (maybe feature x isn't really that important).

Back to the origins

[TuringTest]

This is exactly what Smalltalk was supposed to be, back in the 70's.

The novelty here is the intention to show only bussiness logic and replace the interpeter with the desktop (Smalltalk was language-oriented). A great effort has to be done in hiding the GUI-management code.

Hope that they succeed with this project. I've been pondering for some time now that the whole idea of applications is almost always wrong, and something like this is the correct way to go. At least the concept is far better than the applications+scripting language that Gnome is pursuing.

Pimp OS

[VoidEngineer]

Yep, I can see the slashdot headline now: "Pimp OS uses Naked Objects foundation"...

Hmmm, I'm looking at the screenshot which is posted on the article, and I'm a little amused...

Customer?
Communication?
ChildBenefitScheme?!?!
Case?
Payment?
Officer?

I mean, I can understand that a PimpOS or a SlutOS would want to be object oriented and all. But isn't keeping a record of all your activities going to get you into trouble in most places?

I suppose that the developers are located in Nevada or Amsterdam or someplace.

Re:Overrated

[VoidEngineer]

Wow. I got moderated (-1) for being overrated on this post. Sorry if I offended someone, as I didn't mean to. Ah well. Live and learn.