works with industry-standard data sources, and can use existing languages, such as C,
C++, and Perl.
WebObjects simulates a client/server connection between the user and application objects on the server over connectionless HTTP transactions; it accomplishes this by automating session and state management. WebObjects handles the housekeeping to let remote Web clients appear to talk directly to application objects at the server. It also hides the complexity of breaking up a directly connected user interface into a series of separate Web pages and HTTP transactions. Furthermore, objects at the server have rich access to databases and legacy systems and are programmable.
There are three different editions of WebObjects: a free one that allows interpreted scripts; WebObjects Pro, which adds relational database access, remote messaging through Next's Distributed Objects and Distributed OLE (D'OLE), and compiled C, C++, and Objective-C code; and WebObjects Enterprise, which adds a scalable three-tier database framework for object-oriented access to legacy applications.
All this machinery buys exceptional agility for repurposing existing systems. For example, the Web version of The Official Airline Guide (OAG), a mainframe-based flight-selection and purchasing application that integrates several other massive reservation systems, was prepared with WebObjects Enterprise and Conextions' 3270Builder screen-scraper in about a week (
see the screen
).
Still, this is a version 1.0 product, and it leaves much room for such improvements as more sophisticated interface handling, including visual HTML layout tools. However, Next plans to add these features in a WebObjects upgrade planned for release later this year. For the time being, third parties have stepped in to provide visualization tools and widgets, including Lighthouse Design's WebVision graphing and charting package.
Because it's so new, WebObjects ships with few out-of-the-box applications. We also found its interpreted scripting language, called WebScript, to be slow.
Since
WebObjects only emits HTML, it can already embed Java applets or ActiveX controls, such as the U.S. map in another OAG screen not shown. The map is a Java applet that animates a plane flying across a user-selected route.
The Web is becoming a universal platform for running applications on intranets and on the Internet. As one of the first industrial-strength development kits for weaving such applications into your Web efforts, WebObjects is well worth a look.
Product Information
WebObjects Pro............$ 2,999 for Windows NT, Solaris, and NextStep
..................................$24,999 Enterprise version
Next Software, Inc.
Redwood City, CA
Phone: (800) 879-6398 or (415) 366-0900
Internet:
http:/
/www.next.com
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