Hi,

I think Stefano raises some interesting issues, but there's a flaw in the premise: is everything we do in Cocoon targeted at a browser- based client model? I don't think so. It discounts Cocoon as an integration framework, an XML-based service bus (urgh, buzzword bingo time), and Cocoon as a solution for client platform independence.

That said, I do think there'll be massive challenges in working with the rich client world, when the "transform it all on the server side" model becomes less relevant. Stefano's absolutely right about the challenges these rich clients bring to server-side frameworks. And I surely agree that Cocoon itself has complexity issues, which brings us to Tony's points...

On 1 Oct 2005, at 00:48, Tony Collen wrote:

Not so much FUD as much as a practical statement - I'm sure it will scale, but as with every new framework, the Rails folk need to put some work in to make it handle the complex stuff just as well as it currently handles the simple stuff. The benefit of beginning from a simple premise ("write less code", "convention over configuration") is you get to start with no preconceptions on how to do things, and make life easier for the developer. The downside is you then need to meet developer expectations consistently - and keep things simple all the way up the stack. IMHO, Rails is not quite there yet.

I think this may be true for display-based XSLT processing, but I think it misses out rather a lot of pre-display processing that goes on. I'm also not entirely convinced large companies will be happy about sending out their content and presentation as separate packages. My bet is server-side XSLT is here to stay, for quite some time.

Heheh. Someone should do a talk about this at the GetTogether. Oh, wait .... ;-)

This is exactly the point I'm hoping to get across - helping our users with convention over configuration, less XML sit-ups, providing a clearer "best practice" and a way to hit the ground running right away.

I can't help with the internals of Cocoon (it's way over my head), but I hope I can provide a starting point for lowering the learning curve of Cocoon beginners. If I manage to get the code working, I'll drop it into the whiteboard alongside Bertrand's.

Andrew, who feels like with every passing day more of the ideas of his presentation crop up on the mailing lists before he's had a chance to present them ;-)