Morfik and Rapid Development of Modern Web Apps 127
Bobby Jasper writes to tell us that The Firebird Database Community News has an interesting writeup on Morfik, a new development tool for beginning web applications. Morfik boasts increased developer productivity going so far as to draw comparisons between themselves and the current industry as VB 1.0 was to GUI development. After five years of development they are getting ready to release an evaluation version of their software, might be worth a look.
realy? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:realy? (Score:2)
windows only (Score:5, Informative)
You might have mentioned that in the writeup so non-MSCEs
didn't waste their time reading TFA
Re:windows only (Score:5, Informative)
There are probably a lot more (google on +eclipse +plugin +ajax gives 234.000 hits)
Re:windows only (Score:1)
Anyway: According to Microsoft you could learn more about Open Source by reading a word document, yes (-:.
It was just the first usefull link for this post, did not want to analyze all 234.000 to see which one fits best, and which is in an "open" format. If I post a link to an OpenOffice document, even more people will complain.
Re:windows only (Score:2, Informative)
Re:windows only (Score:3, Informative)
I like the concept, but don't have that kind of money
D
Re:windows only (Score:1)
Backbase does though have a so called community edition [backbase.com], which is free of charge for non commercial purposes.*
* I am in no way affiliated with backbase, nor have I tried or used a single product of them!
Re:windows only (Score:2)
Fortunately, I'm pretty good at getting along without tools. In fact, I think most of them tend to complexify something simple. But I would have seriously considered making an exception for Ajax since the cross-browser issues are tough and time-consuming to research.
D
MSCE? (Score:2)
Well its got the buzzwords (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps I'm a cynic but I always feel that a products real value is inversely proportional to
the amount of marketdroid BS in the write-ups. If I'm correct then this is just Yet-Another-IDE
that is (and wow, like this is so radical dude , well if would be if it was 1990 again) - a Smart
Client! Jeez... how many times we been here before?
No kidding (Score:2, Insightful)
Besides, wasn't Slashdot just bashing Visual Studio [slashdot.org] and other "shake 'n bake" development tools? Why is this "unplugged" and "groundbreaking" new IDE so great? It "rots brains" faster?
Look ma! Morfik made a web-based CRM app, and I helped!
Faster != better when you have no idea how your application works or what makes it tick. Needing to call tech support when your web form breaks for some reason is not a step forward in development.
Re:No kidding (Score:2)
Re:No kidding (Score:2)
Re:Well its got the buzzwords (Score:3, Insightful)
They are trying to use javascript way more than it should be. Program logic should be on the server side and when it is not you start having lots of problems with security holes as well as bugs because browsers hav
Re:Well its got the buzzwords (Score:1)
Re:Well its got the buzzwords (Score:2)
For me, this means that now the few folks using linux on their desktops can run the same (previously VB) apps as the rest of the people who are using it.
I don't have to worry about tomcat, etc...the web pages are all plain old HTML, and the back-end processing pages are language-agnostic. If I write an app, I can port it to wherever I wa
Re:Well its got the buzzwords (Score:2)
Re:Well its got the buzzwords (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Well its got the buzzwords (Score:2)
Couldn't they just iterated the development of it on itself; they could have finished it in a few months.
Or is it only really fast for boilerplate applications?
Re:Well its got the buzzwords (Score:2)
Re:Well its got the buzzwords (Score:2)
Great! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Great! (Score:2)
I feel bad bashing enthusiastic startups, but really, they need to come up with some better selling arguments than quick prototyping and eye candy. I am getting SOOO fed up with the Ajax and "Web 2.0" hype.
Re:Great! (Score:2, Interesting)
check the page source code. You can read a "Generated by Morfik XS http//www.morfik.com" on top... and then realize that the generated code is not compliant with xhtml or html strict.... So using ccs2 with this "mega tool" will be another pain in the ass.
Good job pionners! [morfik.com]
Paid (Score:4, Funny)
Interesting, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm all for "increased developer productivity", however in the work place I have yet to even use Ruby.
Oh well,
Kill kill kill (Score:2)
Re:Interesting, but... (Score:1)
Why? Is your processor older than 5 years? VS2005 (at least the Express Edition) just needs 600 MHz - 1 GHz. Hardly obscene for a new RAD tool.
SharpDevelop (CVS edition supports
Re:Interesting, but... (Score:1)
VS 2005 Pro is very slow on this setup. It is much slower than 2003.
Using Express is not an option for our business.
Re:Interesting, but... (Score:1)
2.4 GHz P4
1 GB RAM
Win2K
Lot's of nice words, but where is the software? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't claim Morfik is vaporware. But let's see it first, and then we can say if it is indeed 'VB 1.0 for the web'.
Re:Lot's of nice words, but where is the software? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Lot's of nice words, but where is the software? (Score:1)
Oh great, yet another language and API to learn. Wouldn't it have been simpler
for everyone if it was a C++/C#/VB API you programmed to?
"and all of a sudden your computer's a web server, "
Trojan writers will have a field day with this thing.
Re:Lot's of nice words, but where is the software? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Lot's of nice words, but where is the software? (Score:2)
Good god.
And with that, I'm speechless for the rest of the day.
Re:Lot's of nice words, but where is the software? (Score:2)
Re:Lot's of nice words, but where is the software? (Score:2)
Re:Lot's of nice words, but where is the software? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Lot's of nice words, but where is the software? (Score:1)
Languages & Morfik (Score:5, Insightful)
That is not being true to yourself. Build an AJAX version than to show the power of what you believe in.
An AJAX version would also make the more and more preferred development environments accessible to them: Mac OS X and Linux (Around me I hear more and more developers choosing for Linux as their main platform, and if Apple would release OS X for the cheap intel hardware, that they will try that too, at least just to see).
Re:Languages & Morfik (Score:2)
Re:Languages & Morfik (Score:1)
Compiler for what? (Score:2)
Also: "The process is a true compilation and avoids boilerplates or code snippet libraries. The source code is put through a parser which includes a tokenizer and syntax analyzer. The parser output is then passed to a semantic map builder which creates a detailed semantic map that conveys the entire 'meaning' of the
Re:Languages & Morfik (Score:2)
Re:Languages & Morfik (Score:2)
You can't be serious. The very worst thing about the AJAX phenomenon is that is has lended credibility to that godawful language.
Re:Languages & Morfik (Score:2)
Ah yes, the world's most misunderstood programming language [crockford.com].
You might find that most of your beef with Javascript lies with its common implementations in web browsers, an entirely different thing to the language itself, and something that people often get confused.
Re:Languages & Morfik (Score:2)
There is no sense I can think of in which javascript, as a language, is inferior to C, which is perfectly adequate for writing compilers of any complexity.
Re:Languages & Morfik (Score:2)
There is no sense I can think of in which javascript, as a language, is inferior to C, which is perfectly adequate for writing compilers of any complexity.
Javascript as a language is inerior to C for some reason:
a) machine language, plenty, processor specific
b) assembler, also plenty a little bit abstract but still processor family specific
c) Fortran / C / APL / probably COBOL, procecessor unspecific, instruction oriented (procedural) languages
d) SmallTalk / C++ / Java / Javascript / Python, object oriented
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Languages & Morfik (Score:2)
But I also realize that all compilation tasks are not necessarily equally complex. I also am pretty sure that if you can write a compiler in C, you can also write one in Javascript.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Languages & Morfik (Score:2)
Not to say you can do it. Being self-hosting is a very important goal for a software tool. Software tools that are self-hosting necessarily have a certain degree of robustness which non-self-hosting tools may not have.
In any case, there is no reason that performance needs to be horrible at all because of the language, at least in this case. The individual interpreter in, say, Mozilla might not be optimized for this kind of thing; I don't know
I'm actually working on something like this (Score:3, Interesting)
So, you'll be able to drag and drop and place visually i
Re:I'm actually working on something like this (Score:1)
Re:I'm actually working on something like this (Score:2)
Re:I'm actually working on something like this (Score:2)
Re:I'm actually working on something like this (Score:2)
Re:I'm actually working on something like this (Score:2)
Re:I'm actually working on something like this (Score:2)
I think you meant to say "source available".
Re:I'm actually working on something like this (Score:2)
Re:Languages & Morfik (Score:2, Funny)
What Morfik is (Score:2, Informative)
Nice advertising (Score:1)
Re:What Morfik is (Score:3, Insightful)
Why didnt the Morfik web site say that? Its marketing gobblygook.
Re:What Morfik is (Score:1)
Any one has sample code? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Any one has sample code? (Score:1)
http://www.morfik.com/vb_sshot.html [morfik.com]
http://www.morfik.com/js_sshot.html [morfik.com]
Where are the web standards (Score:5, Interesting)
Assuming that they actually eat their own dog food, and use their own tool to create their Own site [morfik.com], I wouldn't trust this tool. Their site is an inaccessible piece of table-based rubble with missing alternative texts all over the place. Not even Slashdot in it's old incarnation was this ugly, standards-wise.
Adding to that, their site is severly SEO-deoptimized, which might -- now that I think of it -- be a good thing to end-users, as this will undoubtedly reduce the spread of said markup rubble
Re:Where are the web standards (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, I take it as a good sign that they are focusing on their tech and not their site.
Re:Where are the web standards (Score:2)
Actually, I take it as a good sign that they are focusing on their tech and not their site.
Well, logically you can only infer they are not focusing on their site.
In fact, I'd go further to say that since it's easy to hire a competent web designer, either they don't understand the importance of design, or they've confounded concerns in such a way that a web designer can't do anything with their site, or both.
Professionalism in one area may not be evidence of professionalism in another, but unprofessionalism
Re:Where are the web standards (Score:1)
Fine for any other company , but not for one that sells a web development tool.
It would be like someone selling themself as the worlds best car mechanic turning
up in some smoking , sputtering, rusting old clunker. Would you believe anything
he said if you saw that?
Re:Where are the web standards (Score:3, Insightful)
Why is this even on /.?! (Score:5, Insightful)
This is basically a commercial for some source software package. They haven't released code. They haven't even releasd a closed source evaluation version. All they "released" is some web page with lots of hysterical marketing hype and unsubstantiated vague buzzwords ("JST").
So why, again, is this on /.?
Nice Slashad! (Score:2)
I am sorry I gave these bozos any traffic.
Unplugged? That's soooo 20th century! (Score:2)
What the fuckity fuck? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's an "article" for a CLOSED SOURCE, WIN32 VAPORWARE PRODUCT that LIKENS ITSELF TO VISUAL BASIC.
For god sakes, that's like saying "WOW!!! THIS IS AS FUN AS AIDS!"
2 months to copy gmail with it?? (Score:5, Funny)
"To demonstrate these powerful capabilities, two Morfik programmers used Morfik JST to build a desktop version of Google's Gmail in just 2 months! The application they created is a pixel-by-pixel match of Gmail's interface and functionality, yet it also works offline just like standard email clients such as Microsoft Outlook..."
2 Months?! That doesn't sound like any rapid app development to me. I can go make a copy of gmail in about 3 hours just by downloading the HTML/javascript. Also, it "works" just like Outlook? I'm not sure that's a feature!
Re:2 months to copy gmail with it?? (Score:2)
Re:2 months to copy gmail with it?? (Score:2)
Not sure how serious you're trying to be, so I'll bite.
The works just like Outlook statement is (from the original quoted text) a reference to working offline - i.e., the emails, directories (or whatever they are in GMail) are stored locally, in some form of DB/file system, so that you can read/search them when you are not connected to the internet (and presumably downloaded from any pop/imap server).
Would your 3 hour one do this? If so, cou
Re:2 months to copy gmail with it?? (Score:2)
Not to mention the "bonus" that they were able to write the entire thing in pascal while never touching a li
Sadly misled..... (Score:5, Funny)
I was really hoping for some kind of macho article about "this new technology can kill effortlessly 10,000 civilians using a rechargable solar battery as a power source, making it a exceptional weapon and environmentally conscious as well"
Life is full of these little disappointments....
Re:Sadly misled..... (Score:1)
Whoring out slashdot.... (Score:1)
Looks cool but? (Score:3, Insightful)
at least.. (Score:1)
They have to sound UPBEAT... (as I'm ROFL) (Score:1)
"What is the Morfik Pioneers Program?
The Morfik Pioneers Program is for technology visionaries, commentators and practitioners who see the current web as an embryonic form of a global operating system and the WebOS as major development in this process.
The Morfik Pioneers Program allows such enthusiastic individuals
Re:They have to sound UPBEAT... (as I'm ROFL) (Score:2)
There's a competing product called backbase that goes for either almost $1,000 or almost $6,000 a server depending on how you use it. Since my new project requires a dedicated server, it's $6,000. I might consider $1,000, but $6,000? No way on the planet.
At least Backbase (which has a tag la
ok..... (Score:1)
compiler with JavaScript backend (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, they sure are getting a lot of play (Score:1)
Trying to apply their "Pioneers Program", but... (Score:1)
Thank you for applying to be part of the Morfik Pioneers Program. Your application is being reviewed by the Pioneers coordinator who is responsible for providing successful applicants with the login details to the Program.
I just wonder how hard would they just giving people direct access to their vapour-buzzword-like application?
Who do you have to bribe for this? (Score:2)
Who do you have to bribe for articles like this? And how much?
Or is there any other reason why an article submission for my GPLed webapplication framework gets rejected, but a ridiculously over-priced, closed-source, windows-only offering, whose main feature seems to be buzz-word compliance and marketing-droid BS, gets free PR?
*grrr*
Google querying of Morfix.com (Score:1)
http://www.morfik.com/media/The_Making_of_Northwin d_Unplugged.pdf [morfik.com]
They made a presentation of another demo, then made one of GMAIL. Both use almost exactly the same language, it just looks like some marketer did a find-replace on Northwind. Both were made in 2 weeks for a protoype, and 2 months for a full version.
Fishy.
StickyWidget
Finds the meaning? (Score:1)
Re:Pretty cool (Score:3, Informative)
Also from the article:
"The application logic is written in the developer's object oriented syntax of choice (currently Morfik Basic, Morfik Pascal, Morfik C# or Morfik Java)"
So, had ya actually read the article...
Re:Pretty cool (Score:2)
Um... yay?
Re:Why GMail? (Score:1)
Re:Why GMail? (Score:1)
Re:Why GMail? (Score:1, Informative)
http://www.morfik.com/prerelease_schedule.html#Gm