I recently read the article: "Behind the Red Shed, with Jonathan 'The Wolf' Rentzsch" and in it he talks about how great he thinks WebOjects is. WebObjects, as far as I can tell, is just a basic framework for doing "Web Applications" and things of a similar nature. As I mentioned earlier, he seems to think WebObjects is still the best framework there is. To quote from the article:
When I picked up WO in 2000, I told pretty much anyone who listened that while WebObjects is the most advanced application server out there, that open source would catch up with it inside five years.

Yet here we are in 2005, and there's still nothing close. Believe me, I've been looking. Read the WebObjects developer mailing list for a recap of the treatment WebObjects developers got at WWDC 2004.

I would love to get off WebObjects and replace it with something open source. It would make web application development pitches easier if I never have to mention the dreaded "A" word. I have clients who will simply shut the door if I mention Apple's name, even today.

So I keep an eye on projects like Hibernate, Cayenne, Tapestry and Ruby on Rails. And yet, each time I start a new project, I do the math and rediscover WebObjects will deliver better software in less time. Lord, I wish it weren't true, but it is.

But that wasn't your question. Your question was "is WebObjects relevant"? As a commercial application server: no. It hasn't been for a long time.

No, WebObjects is only relevant if you're on the hook for writing lots of web applications fairly quickly. There's an definite escape velocity however -- the learning curve is steep, so it really only makes sense if you are currently or planning on becoming a professional developer.
My purpose in meditating here was to ask what the other monks think. I have very little experience with non-perl web application frameworks and none at all with WebObjects, so I was wondering if a monk who has experience with both might chime in and offer at least a somewhat objective view on what makes webobjects so great, and why it isn't used more.

In reply to WebObjects vs ... anything? by BUU

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