RE: Which UI "engine" to use?

Actually that's an excellent question. My longterm plan is to implement
abstract interfaces that hide the implementation (i.e. think of the JDBC
spec/interface/implementation). That will allow me to utilize the same
client code for a variety of server platforms while making use of the
best/fastest protocols on each server (i.e. data queues on iSeries for
example). Right now I am in the process of developing a reliable pattern to
build that interface upon. The one thing I lack on the JDBC front is
bi-directional communication. That's why I like data queues so much,
because I can send a request down to the client whenever I want to without
the client constantly polling every few seconds. In my first version of
this tool built with AWT I had polling because it was talking to an Apache
server running Perl.

In the end if I have control over both client and server sides (in this case
I just have control over the client) then I could devise my own transmission
protocol that used much less of a tagging mechanism and more worked on
structural/fixed-length delimiting.

XML is one of those bittersweet technologies (like you are suggesting). It
is flexible enough for any platform/language, but carries with it some ugly
weight. That's kinda why I have trimmed it down to very basic XML (i.e. no
SOAP, concise documents, no schema validation, etc).

Take care and stay warm up there

Right now I am wearing TWO sweaters and a t-shirt in my office in the
basement. Usually with all my computers the temp gets up to 70+ degrees,
but today it is hovering at 64/65 - ouch. Every once in a while I have to
warm my hands up like the football players of the past - brrr! :-)


Aaron Bartell
http://mowyourlawn.com

-----Original Message-----
From: java400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:java400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Paul Holm
Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2008 9:15 AM
To: java400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Which UI "engine" to use?

Aaron,

What is the server side written in? RPG? I'm wondering about the
overhead and productivity loss of passing everything as XML. Have you
ruled out using JDBC on the client for access to your files and program
calls? If so why?

Take care and stay warm up there,

Paul Holm