Before the term became almost synonymous with Java (or J2EE) Application Server, I would have called something like this an Application Server. I suppose the term could still apply. My first thought when I read some of the components was that it seemed like a cross between an Application Server, and an Enterprise Service Bus, with Portal capabilities mixed in for good measure, yet still missing features found in each. Keep in mind that I've been working with Java for several years so that puts a certain slant on the whole thing.

Perhaps you could coin the term Application Service Bus (joking).... or simply stick with Application Server and spell out somewhere that it is not a J2EE ...er JEE Application Server.

Thanks for the suggestion - anyone else?

I followed your link and looked, but all I saw was a pretty diagram consisting of colored boxes with buzzwords in them arranged in a grid, and a little marketing hype. The only other links I saw were to 'screenshots'.

From the phrasing of your OP

After spending the last several years working on projects that ended up needing these kinds of tools, I finally decided to sit down and write them.

this would appear to be a one man development effort, so the text in the boxes:

• WWW-live server.

  What's the alternative to a "live" WWW server? A dead WWW-server? An offline WWW server?

• Customer Extranet.

  What does this mean? Something more that you can give customers an ID?password to logon to one or more of your systems?

• Document Server.

  Documents? Like HTML files? But that would be a web server.

  Maybe .PDF files. Hmmm. Documents live in files. So a 'document server' is just a 'file server'.

  Unless this is one of them guys in a classy suit that walks up to you, asks: "Are you Mr. firstname lastname"? And when you confirm your identity, 'serves' you with some 'documents'?

• Messaging server.
• Notification Server.
• Scheduling server.
• Event stream.
• Subscriber API.
• Publisher API.
• Public API.
• Web services.
• Bulk email server.
• Datapipe server.
• Portal server.
• WWW-Dev server.

  Ah. This is the alternative to a 'live' WWW server--but isn't the difference between them that one is web facing and one is not? If the difference is more than that, doesn't that mean that once I've developed and tested my applications on my WWW-dev server, I have to re-test my applications on my WWW-live server to ensure that they run there also?

All that leads me to these possible descriptions:

• Overambitious.
• Available "Real Soon Now".
• Why does this guy think that he can compete with, never mind surpass, these existing suites?

Sorry if that sounds cynical, but your 10,000 foot overview tells me so little about your development platform that it is a bit like trying to describe a property after being pointed at an ariel view of it taken from a similar height. "It's that slightly darker grey pixel just there."

---

Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error.

Lingua non convalesco, consenesco et abolesco. -- Rule 1 has a caveat! -- Who broke the cabal?

"Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority".

In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice.

The MVC part has moved past planning and is actually done.

It is "informed" by Catalyst in that it can build out some scaffolding for you, if you want.

It's similar to Ruby on Rails in that your Views can be auto-generated for you (or manually written).

The MVC environment is intended to be straightforward and easy to understand, as well as easy to maintain. The Controller logic is automated for you (unless otherwise specified). Your Views are automatic unless you specify otherwise (on a per-View basis).

Multiple-step "wizard" functionality is available out of the box. Form validation is automatic (unless otherwise specified on a per-View basis).

The templating tool is a slightly updated version of Apache::ASP. Updated meaning that you have database-serialized session state and the XMLSubs code has been updated so that your tags can be sub-classed (among other minor improvements).