Application framework technology set

[Anil Patel-3]

Hi,
I am having little difficulty to envision, What Ofbiz will look like a  
year or two down the road?

I am personally satisfied with most of core technologies of ofbiz  
except for Form widget. Form widgets needs some enhancements and even  
those don't seem too difficult. Ofbiz framework technologies made  
development lot easy back in day when J2EE made things impossible.  
Now, 7 years down the road, Java enterprise application development  
tool set has changed a lot.  What I am trying to get out of this  
thread is, What others in community think about it?"

At different times, people have asked for ability to deploy ofbiz on  
application servers other then Tomcat, and in JEE recommended style,  
like create war or ear. I am curious what did these people do? Did we  
loose those potential ofbiz users!, Or Did they accept whatever is  
available and used ofbiz to solve their business problems.

There are some JEE spec compliant technologies that we can use instead  
of home grown like,  use
1) Ice Faces (or Myfaces) instead of Form Widget
2) JPA instead of Entity engine
3) EJB instead of Service engine
4) Integrate with Pluto for Portal server
5) use third party Content management

I think Ofbiz community is more interested in solving business process  
problems instead of building cool framework. We can focus much more on  
business problems if we utilize third party framework technologies.  
Some of the frameworks have excellent support from IDE venders, great  
books are available to learn, existing pool of skilled developers and  
many more goodies that we all know.

Open source ERP space is growing. We need to think fresh. Take a  
break, Plan for next 5 years, Set our goals.  All other open source  
ERP/CRM applications are doing it. There is no corporation behind  
ofbiz so its community's responsibility. Put a plan together. Make it  
easy for people to contribute. I am sure there are tons of people in  
community who want to contribute but don't know how.

I am worried because, After working on minilang, screen widgets, form  
widgets,  service engine, entity engine for so long I almost forgot  
Java/J2EE skills set. What if Ofbiz does not remain as popular 5 years  
down the road, How am I going to pay for my daughters college expenses?

This email is not intended to hurt anybody's feeling or scare anybody.  
Ofbiz is in great shape, I wanted to get people to speak up and help  
plan for future.

Thanks and Regards
Anil Patel

[Andrew Zeneski-2]

Anil,

These are really great questions to ask, and I am excited to see this  
thread start. Let me be the first to say, I agree with you 100% that  
now is the time to plan for the future.

When we started OFBiz in 2001, the tools available were less powerful  
and less appealing than the ones available today. If we were starting  
today I think a lot would be different. For example, I would probably  
vote for JPA over writing another persistence layer. I would vote for  
using Stripes, Wicket, or maybe JSF (but v2) for presentation. On the  
service layer, I would prefer to use an existing framework be it EJB  
(session beans) or some flavor of an ESB (maybe ServiceMix). In the  
end, focus 100% on the applications and let the other projects focus  
on each specific framework piece.

Most of all, I would vote in favor standardized deployment. OFBiz is  
not SAP, we just don't have enough clout to dictate how the  
application should be deployed. People bend over backwards and design  
their entire infrastructure around SAP, we should do the opposite;  
allow OFBiz to adjust to a company's infrastructure (without headaches).

The last thing I would do differently, if I could figure out a way  
how, is to decouple the applications. So that a CRM application does  
not require the overhead needed for Orders and Products.

Then we have the next question, what types of applications should we  
focus now to be the leader in the next 5 years? Do with stick with  
ERP, or do we look to make some changes? But I think this should be a  
thread all in itself.

Andrew


On Oct 24, 2008, at 7:36 PM, Anil Patel wrote:

> Hi,
> I am having little difficulty to envision, What Ofbiz will look like  
> a year or two down the road?
>
> I am personally satisfied with most of core technologies of ofbiz  
> except for Form widget. Form widgets needs some enhancements and  
> even those don't seem too difficult. Ofbiz framework technologies  
> made development lot easy back in day when J2EE made things  
> impossible. Now, 7 years down the road, Java enterprise application  
> development tool set has changed a lot.  What I am trying to get out  
> of this thread is, What others in community think about it?"
>
> At different times, people have asked for ability to deploy ofbiz on  
> application servers other then Tomcat, and in JEE recommended style,  
> like create war or ear. I am curious what did these people do? Did  
> we loose those potential ofbiz users!, Or Did they accept whatever  
> is available and used ofbiz to solve their business problems.
>
> There are some JEE spec compliant technologies that we can use  
> instead of home grown like,  use
> 1) Ice Faces (or Myfaces) instead of Form Widget
> 2) JPA instead of Entity engine
> 3) EJB instead of Service engine
> 4) Integrate with Pluto for Portal server
> 5) use third party Content management
>
> I think Ofbiz community is more interested in solving business  
> process problems instead of building cool framework. We can focus  
> much more on business problems if we utilize third party framework  
> technologies. Some of the frameworks have excellent support from IDE  
> venders, great books are available to learn, existing pool of  
> skilled developers and many more goodies that we all know.
>
> Open source ERP space is growing. We need to think fresh. Take a  
> break, Plan for next 5 years, Set our goals.  All other open source  
> ERP/CRM applications are doing it. There is no corporation behind  
> ofbiz so its community's responsibility. Put a plan together. Make  
> it easy for people to contribute. I am sure there are tons of people  
> in community who want to contribute but don't know how.
>
> I am worried because, After working on minilang, screen widgets,  
> form widgets,  service engine, entity engine for so long I almost  
> forgot Java/J2EE skills set. What if Ofbiz does not remain as  
> popular 5 years down the road, How am I going to pay for my  
> daughters college expenses?
>
> This email is not intended to hurt anybody's feeling or scare  
> anybody. Ofbiz is in great shape, I wanted to get people to speak up  
> and help plan for future.
>
> Thanks and Regards
> Anil Patel

[rajsaini]

Thanks Anil for starting this thread. I have been asking these very
questions many time while working on the OFBiz. Your POV about the
concentration on applications instead of the framework is something very
interesting. I found OFBiz community two good things about the OFBiz and
community. OFBiz data model and domain knowledge of the community is is
great. Therefore, community can certainly leverage on these two.

Though this may be premature to discuss specif technologies to be used,
however, I would like to mention that OSGi based component model and
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) may be two interesting technologies to
think about.

http://servicemix.apache.org/introduction-to-esb.html
http://java.sys-con.com/node/117740?page=1


Thanks,

Raj


Anil Patel wrote:

> Hi,
> I am having little difficulty to envision, What Ofbiz will look like a
> year or two down the road?
>
> I am personally satisfied with most of core technologies of ofbiz
> except for Form widget. Form widgets needs some enhancements and even
> those don't seem too difficult. Ofbiz framework technologies made
> development lot easy back in day when J2EE made things impossible.
> Now, 7 years down the road, Java enterprise application development
> tool set has changed a lot.  What I am trying to get out of this
> thread is, What others in community think about it?"
>
> At different times, people have asked for ability to deploy ofbiz on
> application servers other then Tomcat, and in JEE recommended style,
> like create war or ear. I am curious what did these people do? Did we
> loose those potential ofbiz users!, Or Did they accept whatever is
> available and used ofbiz to solve their business problems.
>
> There are some JEE spec compliant technologies that we can use instead
> of home grown like,  use
> 1) Ice Faces (or Myfaces) instead of Form Widget
> 2) JPA instead of Entity engine
> 3) EJB instead of Service engine
> 4) Integrate with Pluto for Portal server
> 5) use third party Content management
>
> I think Ofbiz community is more interested in solving business process
> problems instead of building cool framework. We can focus much more on
> business problems if we utilize third party framework technologies.
> Some of the frameworks have excellent support from IDE venders, great
> books are available to learn, existing pool of skilled developers and
> many more goodies that we all know.
>
> Open source ERP space is growing. We need to think fresh. Take a
> break, Plan for next 5 years, Set our goals.  All other open source
> ERP/CRM applications are doing it. There is no corporation behind
> ofbiz so its community's responsibility. Put a plan together. Make it
> easy for people to contribute. I am sure there are tons of people in
> community who want to contribute but don't know how.
>
> I am worried because, After working on minilang, screen widgets, form
> widgets,  service engine, entity engine for so long I almost forgot
> Java/J2EE skills set. What if Ofbiz does not remain as popular 5 years
> down the road, How am I going to pay for my daughters college expenses?
>
> This email is not intended to hurt anybody's feeling or scare anybody.
> Ofbiz is in great shape, I wanted to get people to speak up and help
> plan for future.
>
> Thanks and Regards
> Anil Patel

[BJ Freeman]

I guess I am left in the dust.
I am not up on the "Java enterprise application development tool"
as far as JEE recommended style, ofbiz allows many presentation layers,
all that needs is the handler.
The key here was that the data could be changes in the lower levels
(entities) and there was no work on displaying the data at the UI level.
Granted I think the display format needs a lot of User friendly
messaging, but that is what I get paid for.

When I first came to ofbiz I used AWT/SWT, still do, and I wrote a layer
to communcate between ofbiz and my aWT/SWT UI's. So I see nothing
keeping someone from implementing any UI they want.

The focus up till now, at least my understanding, is the entity and
service engine were the core of ofbiz. the data model is from a
published reference, which is were the application were developed from.
The other point is the Application, defines the data model instead of th
e database defining the application.
So if you remove th entity and service engine What is there that makes
this ofbiz?
if you go back to classes that define data models, there is a lot of
overhead to marshal those into being able to create a Database from the
applications, as in JPA. From what I read, this goes back to the
Database design controlling the application.
One of the main reason I choose ofbiz over hibernate, was you designed a
business application and let it create the storage medium. This allowed
a lot of flexibility on the storage medium I used.
I was not pinned to Oracale, MS-SQL and such.
if I moved from one storage type to another there was no work to get the
storage medium online.

What I hear, is that ofbiz takes a lot of getting use to, and people
would rather use the tools they have become use to.

so if the points I laid out can be accomplished with these new tools and
preserve what was ofbiz i am all for it.

otherwise why not go to hibernate that does what you describe.

as far as the future, what a business is interersted in is ROI, so if
the software does more, with less labor, or allows the processes to be
perserved thru employee turn over, it is ocomplishing its goal.
I have had two point i have made my money on:
1)reduced keystrokes, thus reduce errors.
2)make the application look like what they do already, just automated.





Anil Patel sent the following on 10/24/2008 4:36 PM:

> Hi,
> I am having little difficulty to envision, What Ofbiz will look like a
> year or two down the road?
>
> I am personally satisfied with most of core technologies of ofbiz except
> for Form widget. Form widgets needs some enhancements and even those
> don't seem too difficult. Ofbiz framework technologies made development
> lot easy back in day when J2EE made things impossible. Now, 7 years down
> the road, Java enterprise application development tool set has changed a
> lot.  What I am trying to get out of this thread is, What others in
> community think about it?"
>
> At different times, people have asked for ability to deploy ofbiz on
> application servers other then Tomcat, and in JEE recommended style,
> like create war or ear. I am curious what did these people do? Did we
> loose those potential ofbiz users!, Or Did they accept whatever is
> available and used ofbiz to solve their business problems.
>
> There are some JEE spec compliant technologies that we can use instead
> of home grown like,  use
> 1) Ice Faces (or Myfaces) instead of Form Widget
> 2) JPA instead of Entity engine
> 3) EJB instead of Service engine
> 4) Integrate with Pluto for Portal server
> 5) use third party Content management
>
> I think Ofbiz community is more interested in solving business process
> problems instead of building cool framework. We can focus much more on
> business problems if we utilize third party framework technologies. Some
> of the frameworks have excellent support from IDE venders, great books
> are available to learn, existing pool of skilled developers and many
> more goodies that we all know.
>
> Open source ERP space is growing. We need to think fresh. Take a break,
> Plan for next 5 years, Set our goals.  All other open source ERP/CRM
> applications are doing it. There is no corporation behind ofbiz so its
> community's responsibility. Put a plan together. Make it easy for people
> to contribute. I am sure there are tons of people in community who want
> to contribute but don't know how.
>
> I am worried because, After working on minilang, screen widgets, form
> widgets,  service engine, entity engine for so long I almost forgot
> Java/J2EE skills set. What if Ofbiz does not remain as popular 5 years
> down the road, How am I going to pay for my daughters college expenses?
>
> This email is not intended to hurt anybody's feeling or scare anybody.
> Ofbiz is in great shape, I wanted to get people to speak up and help
> plan for future.
>
> Thanks and Regards
> Anil Patel

[BJ Freeman]

Oh btw, I bid on many jobs that cover the business gambit.
ofbiz, (with the rest of what is in the model book) covers all of them.
So ofbiz is more than ERP, it is marketing to the needs.

BJ Freeman sent the following on 10/24/2008 11:57 PM:

> I guess I am left in the dust.
> I am not up on the "Java enterprise application development tool"
> as far as JEE recommended style, ofbiz allows many presentation layers,
> all that needs is the handler.
> The key here was that the data could be changes in the lower levels
> (entities) and there was no work on displaying the data at the UI level.
> Granted I think the display format needs a lot of User friendly
> messaging, but that is what I get paid for.
>
> When I first came to ofbiz I used AWT/SWT, still do, and I wrote a layer
> to communcate between ofbiz and my aWT/SWT UI's. So I see nothing
> keeping someone from implementing any UI they want.
>
> The focus up till now, at least my understanding, is the entity and
> service engine were the core of ofbiz. the data model is from a
> published reference, which is were the application were developed from.
> The other point is the Application, defines the data model instead of th
> e database defining the application.
> So if you remove th entity and service engine What is there that makes
> this ofbiz?
> if you go back to classes that define data models, there is a lot of
> overhead to marshal those into being able to create a Database from the
> applications, as in JPA. From what I read, this goes back to the
> Database design controlling the application.
> One of the main reason I choose ofbiz over hibernate, was you designed a
> business application and let it create the storage medium. This allowed
> a lot of flexibility on the storage medium I used.
> I was not pinned to Oracale, MS-SQL and such.
> if I moved from one storage type to another there was no work to get the
> storage medium online.
>
> What I hear, is that ofbiz takes a lot of getting use to, and people
> would rather use the tools they have become use to.
>
> so if the points I laid out can be accomplished with these new tools and
> preserve what was ofbiz i am all for it.
>
> otherwise why not go to hibernate that does what you describe.
>
> as far as the future, what a business is interersted in is ROI, so if
> the software does more, with less labor, or allows the processes to be
> perserved thru employee turn over, it is ocomplishing its goal.
> I have had two point i have made my money on:
> 1)reduced keystrokes, thus reduce errors.
> 2)make the application look like what they do already, just automated.
>
>
>
>
>
> Anil Patel sent the following on 10/24/2008 4:36 PM:
>> Hi,
>> I am having little difficulty to envision, What Ofbiz will look like a
>> year or two down the road?
>>
>> I am personally satisfied with most of core technologies of ofbiz except
>> for Form widget. Form widgets needs some enhancements and even those
>> don't seem too difficult. Ofbiz framework technologies made development
>> lot easy back in day when J2EE made things impossible. Now, 7 years down
>> the road, Java enterprise application development tool set has changed a
>> lot.  What I am trying to get out of this thread is, What others in
>> community think about it?"
>>
>> At different times, people have asked for ability to deploy ofbiz on
>> application servers other then Tomcat, and in JEE recommended style,
>> like create war or ear. I am curious what did these people do? Did we
>> loose those potential ofbiz users!, Or Did they accept whatever is
>> available and used ofbiz to solve their business problems.
>>
>> There are some JEE spec compliant technologies that we can use instead
>> of home grown like,  use
>> 1) Ice Faces (or Myfaces) instead of Form Widget
>> 2) JPA instead of Entity engine
>> 3) EJB instead of Service engine
>> 4) Integrate with Pluto for Portal server
>> 5) use third party Content management
>>
>> I think Ofbiz community is more interested in solving business process
>> problems instead of building cool framework. We can focus much more on
>> business problems if we utilize third party framework technologies. Some
>> of the frameworks have excellent support from IDE venders, great books
>> are available to learn, existing pool of skilled developers and many
>> more goodies that we all know.
>>
>> Open source ERP space is growing. We need to think fresh. Take a break,
>> Plan for next 5 years, Set our goals.  All other open source ERP/CRM
>> applications are doing it. There is no corporation behind ofbiz so its
>> community's responsibility. Put a plan together. Make it easy for people
>> to contribute. I am sure there are tons of people in community who want
>> to contribute but don't know how.
>>
>> I am worried because, After working on minilang, screen widgets, form
>> widgets,  service engine, entity engine for so long I almost forgot
>> Java/J2EE skills set. What if Ofbiz does not remain as popular 5 years
>> down the road, How am I going to pay for my daughters college expenses?
>>
>> This email is not intended to hurt anybody's feeling or scare anybody.
>> Ofbiz is in great shape, I wanted to get people to speak up and help
>> plan for future.
>>
>> Thanks and Regards
>> Anil Patel
>
>

[Adrian Crum-2]

I would like to see OFBiz use Apache Directory (http://directory.apache.org) for user permissions and security.

-Adrian


--- On Fri, 10/24/08, Anil Patel <[hidden email]> wrote:

> From: Anil Patel <[hidden email]>
> Subject: Application framework technology set
> To: [hidden email]
> Date: Friday, October 24, 2008, 4:36 PM
> Hi,
> I am having little difficulty to envision, What Ofbiz will
> look like a  
> year or two down the road?
>
> I am personally satisfied with most of core technologies of
> ofbiz  
> except for Form widget. Form widgets needs some
> enhancements and even  
> those don't seem too difficult. Ofbiz framework
> technologies made  
> development lot easy back in day when J2EE made things
> impossible.  
> Now, 7 years down the road, Java enterprise application
> development  
> tool set has changed a lot.  What I am trying to get out of
> this  
> thread is, What others in community think about it?"
>
> At different times, people have asked for ability to deploy
> ofbiz on  
> application servers other then Tomcat, and in JEE
> recommended style,  
> like create war or ear. I am curious what did these people
> do? Did we  
> loose those potential ofbiz users!, Or Did they accept
> whatever is  
> available and used ofbiz to solve their business problems.
>
> There are some JEE spec compliant technologies that we can
> use instead  
> of home grown like,  use
> 1) Ice Faces (or Myfaces) instead of Form Widget
> 2) JPA instead of Entity engine
> 3) EJB instead of Service engine
> 4) Integrate with Pluto for Portal server
> 5) use third party Content management
>
> I think Ofbiz community is more interested in solving
> business process  
> problems instead of building cool framework. We can focus
> much more on  
> business problems if we utilize third party framework
> technologies.  
> Some of the frameworks have excellent support from IDE
> venders, great  
> books are available to learn, existing pool of skilled
> developers and  
> many more goodies that we all know.
>
> Open source ERP space is growing. We need to think fresh.
> Take a  
> break, Plan for next 5 years, Set our goals.  All other
> open source  
> ERP/CRM applications are doing it. There is no corporation
> behind  
> ofbiz so its community's responsibility. Put a plan
> together. Make it  
> easy for people to contribute. I am sure there are tons of
> people in  
> community who want to contribute but don't know how.
>
> I am worried because, After working on minilang, screen
> widgets, form  
> widgets,  service engine, entity engine for so long I
> almost forgot  
> Java/J2EE skills set. What if Ofbiz does not remain as
> popular 5 years  
> down the road, How am I going to pay for my daughters
> college expenses?
>
> This email is not intended to hurt anybody's feeling or
> scare anybody.  
> Ofbiz is in great shape, I wanted to get people to speak up
> and help  
> plan for future.
>
> Thanks and Regards
> Anil Patel

     

[Shi Yusen]

Open For Business

Q: Do we open enough for today's large business?

It's important for OFBiz to be a component plugged into current systems
as a peripheral or a department ERP/CRM in large corporations. So OFBiz
should be able to support

1. Portal: esay to produce portlet war files that can be deployed in
specific portals. Langhua will try to do something in this area in 2009.

2. EAI: easy to build new adaptors for message bus vendors.

3. Social Network Friendly: many functions to do. Langhua will try to
add OpenId and SAML support to OFBiz in 2009.

4. Deployment: I think OFBiz should keep it as a servlet application,
BUT reconstruct a servlet entry class to replace/remove the build-in
tomcat. As someone from CME said, why CME bought Weblogic? Weblogic bear
responsibility for system crashes, that's all. OFBiz should get rid of
the tomcat shell and merge into large company's system.

5. PDM: easy to import PDM data into OFBiz.

6. Other ERPs: easy to import/export data to other ERPs such as SAP, and
other OFBiz instance of course.


Q: Do we open enough for today's medium business?


Q: Do we open enough for today's small business?
We are a small (or tiny) company and we're build our project managment
system on OFBiz. It's OK.


Regards,

Shi Yusen/Beijing Langhua Ltd.

在 2008-10-24五的 22:19 -0400，Andrew Zeneski写道：

> Anil,
>
> These are really great questions to ask, and I am excited to see this  
> thread start. Let me be the first to say, I agree with you 100% that  
> now is the time to plan for the future.
>
> When we started OFBiz in 2001, the tools available were less powerful  
> and less appealing than the ones available today. If we were starting  
> today I think a lot would be different. For example, I would probably  
> vote for JPA over writing another persistence layer. I would vote for  
> using Stripes, Wicket, or maybe JSF (but v2) for presentation. On the  
> service layer, I would prefer to use an existing framework be it EJB  
> (session beans) or some flavor of an ESB (maybe ServiceMix). In the  
> end, focus 100% on the applications and let the other projects focus  
> on each specific framework piece.
>
> Most of all, I would vote in favor standardized deployment. OFBiz is  
> not SAP, we just don't have enough clout to dictate how the  
> application should be deployed. People bend over backwards and design  
> their entire infrastructure around SAP, we should do the opposite;  
> allow OFBiz to adjust to a company's infrastructure (without headaches).
>
> The last thing I would do differently, if I could figure out a way  
> how, is to decouple the applications. So that a CRM application does  
> not require the overhead needed for Orders and Products.
>
> Then we have the next question, what types of applications should we  
> focus now to be the leader in the next 5 years? Do with stick with  
> ERP, or do we look to make some changes? But I think this should be a  
> thread all in itself.
>
> Andrew
>
>
> On Oct 24, 2008, at 7:36 PM, Anil Patel wrote:
>
> > Hi,
> > I am having little difficulty to envision, What Ofbiz will look like  
> > a year or two down the road?
> >
> > I am personally satisfied with most of core technologies of ofbiz  
> > except for Form widget. Form widgets needs some enhancements and  
> > even those don't seem too difficult. Ofbiz framework technologies  
> > made development lot easy back in day when J2EE made things  
> > impossible. Now, 7 years down the road, Java enterprise application  
> > development tool set has changed a lot.  What I am trying to get out  
> > of this thread is, What others in community think about it?"
> >
> > At different times, people have asked for ability to deploy ofbiz on  
> > application servers other then Tomcat, and in JEE recommended style,  
> > like create war or ear. I am curious what did these people do? Did  
> > we loose those potential ofbiz users!, Or Did they accept whatever  
> > is available and used ofbiz to solve their business problems.
> >
> > There are some JEE spec compliant technologies that we can use  
> > instead of home grown like,  use
> > 1) Ice Faces (or Myfaces) instead of Form Widget
> > 2) JPA instead of Entity engine
> > 3) EJB instead of Service engine
> > 4) Integrate with Pluto for Portal server
> > 5) use third party Content management
> >
> > I think Ofbiz community is more interested in solving business  
> > process problems instead of building cool framework. We can focus  
> > much more on business problems if we utilize third party framework  
> > technologies. Some of the frameworks have excellent support from IDE  
> > venders, great books are available to learn, existing pool of  
> > skilled developers and many more goodies that we all know.
> >
> > Open source ERP space is growing. We need to think fresh. Take a  
> > break, Plan for next 5 years, Set our goals.  All other open source  
> > ERP/CRM applications are doing it. There is no corporation behind  
> > ofbiz so its community's responsibility. Put a plan together. Make  
> > it easy for people to contribute. I am sure there are tons of people  
> > in community who want to contribute but don't know how.
> >
> > I am worried because, After working on minilang, screen widgets,  
> > form widgets,  service engine, entity engine for so long I almost  
> > forgot Java/J2EE skills set. What if Ofbiz does not remain as  
> > popular 5 years down the road, How am I going to pay for my  
> > daughters college expenses?
> >
> > This email is not intended to hurt anybody's feeling or scare  
> > anybody. Ofbiz is in great shape, I wanted to get people to speak up  
> > and help plan for future.
> >
> > Thanks and Regards
> > Anil Patel
>

[Adrian Crum-2]

--- On Fri, 10/24/08, Andrew Zeneski <[hidden email]> wrote:

> When we started OFBiz in 2001, the tools available were
> less powerful and less appealing than the ones available
> today. If we were starting today I think a lot would be
> different. For example, I would probably vote for JPA over
> writing another persistence layer. I would vote for using
> Stripes, Wicket, or maybe JSF (but v2) for presentation. On
> the service layer, I would prefer to use an existing
> framework be it EJB (session beans) or some flavor of an ESB
> (maybe ServiceMix). In the end, focus 100% on the
> applications and let the other projects focus on each
> specific framework piece.

I spent a little time looking at ServiceMix. It seems to duplicate a lot of the OFBiz infrastructure - which may be good or bad. It has its own application server container and persistence engine. Maybe we could create our own ESB based on whatever persistence layer OFBiz uses (Entity Engine or some future existing library) and JBI.

I really like the idea of OFBiz implementing ESB - an OFBiz user could easily plug in additional ESB applications.

-Adrian



     

[rajsaini]

Adrian Crum wrote:
> I spent a little time looking at ServiceMix. It seems to duplicate a lot of the OFBiz infrastructure - which may be good or bad. It has its own application server container and persistence engine. Maybe we could create our own ESB based on whatever persistence layer OFBiz uses (Entity Engine or some future existing library) and JBI.
>
> I really like the idea of OFBiz implementing ESB - an OFBiz user could easily plug in additional ESB applications.
>
> -Adrian
>  

I don't think ServicMix has their own persistence and service layers.
ServiceMix is implementation of Java Business Integration (JBI) What
they have are called Binding Components (BC)and Service Engines (SE). I
see OFBiz applications as another BEs and communicating to each other
using JBI standards.

Also, we can run service mix as standalone as well as embedded
container. For example Apache Geronimo application server embeds
ServiceMix. ServiceMix 4.0 will support OSGi components.

Thanks,

Raj

>
>
>      
>
>  

[Adrian Crum]

Raj Saini wrote:

> Adrian Crum wrote:
>> I spent a little time looking at ServiceMix. It seems to duplicate a
>> lot of the OFBiz infrastructure - which may be good or bad. It has its
>> own application server container and persistence engine. Maybe we
>> could create our own ESB based on whatever persistence layer OFBiz
>> uses (Entity Engine or some future existing library) and JBI.
>>
>> I really like the idea of OFBiz implementing ESB - an OFBiz user could
>> easily plug in additional ESB applications.
>>
>> -Adrian
>>  
>
> I don't think ServicMix has their own persistence and service layers.
> ServiceMix is implementation of Java Business Integration (JBI) What
> they have are called Binding Components (BC)and Service Engines (SE). I
> see OFBiz applications as another BEs and communicating to each other
> using JBI standards.
>
> Also, we can run service mix as standalone as well as embedded
> container. For example Apache Geronimo application server embeds
> ServiceMix. ServiceMix 4.0 will support OSGi components.

Thanks Raj! I saw that the ServiceMix download included Jetty and
Hibernate. I admit I don't know enough about it - so I didn't realize
those were optional.

If there is enough interest, it would be nice to get a discussion going
in a Jira issue or on the Wiki.

-Adrian

[Tim Ruppert]

+1

Cheers,
Tim
--
Tim Ruppert
HotWax Media
http://www.hotwaxmedia.com

o:801.649.6594
f:801.649.6595

On Nov 10, 2008, at 8:28 AM, Adrian Crum wrote:

> Raj Saini wrote:
>> Adrian Crum wrote:
>>> I spent a little time looking at ServiceMix. It seems to duplicate  
>>> a lot of the OFBiz infrastructure - which may be good or bad. It  
>>> has its own application server container and persistence engine.  
>>> Maybe we could create our own ESB based on whatever persistence  
>>> layer OFBiz uses (Entity Engine or some future existing library)  
>>> and JBI.
>>>
>>> I really like the idea of OFBiz implementing ESB - an OFBiz user  
>>> could easily plug in additional ESB applications.
>>>
>>> -Adrian
>>>
>> I don't think ServicMix has their own persistence and service  
>> layers. ServiceMix is implementation of Java Business Integration  
>> (JBI) What they have are called Binding Components (BC)and Service  
>> Engines (SE). I see OFBiz applications as another BEs and  
>> communicating to each other using JBI standards.
>> Also, we can run service mix as standalone as well as embedded  
>> container. For example Apache Geronimo application server embeds  
>> ServiceMix. ServiceMix 4.0 will support OSGi components.
>
> Thanks Raj! I saw that the ServiceMix download included Jetty and  
> Hibernate. I admit I don't know enough about it - so I didn't  
> realize those were optional.
>
> If there is enough interest, it would be nice to get a discussion  
> going in a Jira issue or on the Wiki.
>
> -Adrian

[rajsaini]

+1, yes it would be nice to have this discussion and wider community
participation.

Thanks,

Raj

Adrian Crum wrote:

> Raj Saini wrote:
>> Adrian Crum wrote:
>>> I spent a little time looking at ServiceMix. It seems to duplicate a
>>> lot of the OFBiz infrastructure - which may be good or bad. It has
>>> its own application server container and persistence engine. Maybe
>>> we could create our own ESB based on whatever persistence layer
>>> OFBiz uses (Entity Engine or some future existing library) and JBI.
>>>
>>> I really like the idea of OFBiz implementing ESB - an OFBiz user
>>> could easily plug in additional ESB applications.
>>>
>>> -Adrian
>>>  
>>
>> I don't think ServicMix has their own persistence and service layers.
>> ServiceMix is implementation of Java Business Integration (JBI) What
>> they have are called Binding Components (BC)and Service Engines (SE).
>> I see OFBiz applications as another BEs and communicating to each
>> other using JBI standards.
>>
>> Also, we can run service mix as standalone as well as embedded
>> container. For example Apache Geronimo application server embeds
>> ServiceMix. ServiceMix 4.0 will support OSGi components.
>
> Thanks Raj! I saw that the ServiceMix download included Jetty and
> Hibernate. I admit I don't know enough about it - so I didn't realize
> those were optional.
>
> If there is enough interest, it would be nice to get a discussion
> going in a Jira issue or on the Wiki.
>
> -Adrian
>

[Vasanth Kamatgi]

I have been working on Ofbiz for the past 4 years and have got fairly good proficiency in all major areas of Ofbiz.  One problem I have consistently faced with Ofbiz is its presentation layer.  There isn’t a strict separation of UI / Code in the presentation layer.  Due to this deficiency, for any revamp in the UI, even though there is no associated change in the functionality / business logic, it takes substantial amount of developer time.  I see this as a major hindrance to a typical ecommerce website, where UI changes are frequent as well as significant.  For this reason, I am looking for the possibility of replacing the presentation layer with a more modular framework with good separation of concerns of UI designer and developer.

This is an excellent post that could have thrown more light on the issue of replacing certain elements of Ofbiz with more powerful alternatives.  However I see that there haven’t been many conversations on this topic for a long time now.  I would like to see more people participate.

At this point, I am specifically looking at the possibility of replacing the Ofbiz presentation layer with Wicket.  I wonder if anyone had tried it out.  In addition to people who have done this experiment, I would like to hear from others, on the possible pros / cons of this approach.  My objective is – How to make ecommerce module amenable to major UI changes (including swapping components from one page to another, splitting pages etc.) with least amount of developer involvement and UI designer controlling most of the activity.

Thanks,
Vasanth

Andrew Zeneski-2 wrote

Anil,

These are really great questions to ask, and I am excited to see this  
thread start. Let me be the first to say, I agree with you 100% that  
now is the time to plan for the future.

When we started OFBiz in 2001, the tools available were less powerful  
and less appealing than the ones available today. If we were starting  
today I think a lot would be different. For example, I would probably  
vote for JPA over writing another persistence layer. I would vote for  
using Stripes, Wicket, or maybe JSF (but v2) for presentation. On the  
service layer, I would prefer to use an existing framework be it EJB  
(session beans) or some flavor of an ESB (maybe ServiceMix). In the  
end, focus 100% on the applications and let the other projects focus  
on each specific framework piece.

Most of all, I would vote in favor standardized deployment. OFBiz is  
not SAP, we just don't have enough clout to dictate how the  
application should be deployed. People bend over backwards and design  
their entire infrastructure around SAP, we should do the opposite;  
allow OFBiz to adjust to a company's infrastructure (without headaches).

The last thing I would do differently, if I could figure out a way  
how, is to decouple the applications. So that a CRM application does  
not require the overhead needed for Orders and Products.

Then we have the next question, what types of applications should we  
focus now to be the leader in the next 5 years? Do with stick with  
ERP, or do we look to make some changes? But I think this should be a  
thread all in itself.

Andrew


On Oct 24, 2008, at 7:36 PM, Anil Patel wrote:

> Hi,
> I am having little difficulty to envision, What Ofbiz will look like  
> a year or two down the road?
>
> I am personally satisfied with most of core technologies of ofbiz  
> except for Form widget. Form widgets needs some enhancements and  
> even those don't seem too difficult. Ofbiz framework technologies  
> made development lot easy back in day when J2EE made things  
> impossible. Now, 7 years down the road, Java enterprise application  
> development tool set has changed a lot.  What I am trying to get out  
> of this thread is, What others in community think about it?"
>
> At different times, people have asked for ability to deploy ofbiz on  
> application servers other then Tomcat, and in JEE recommended style,  
> like create war or ear. I am curious what did these people do? Did  
> we loose those potential ofbiz users!, Or Did they accept whatever  
> is available and used ofbiz to solve their business problems.
>
> There are some JEE spec compliant technologies that we can use  
> instead of home grown like,  use
> 1) Ice Faces (or Myfaces) instead of Form Widget
> 2) JPA instead of Entity engine
> 3) EJB instead of Service engine
> 4) Integrate with Pluto for Portal server
> 5) use third party Content management
>
> I think Ofbiz community is more interested in solving business  
> process problems instead of building cool framework. We can focus  
> much more on business problems if we utilize third party framework  
> technologies. Some of the frameworks have excellent support from IDE  
> venders, great books are available to learn, existing pool of  
> skilled developers and many more goodies that we all know.
>
> Open source ERP space is growing. We need to think fresh. Take a  
> break, Plan for next 5 years, Set our goals.  All other open source  
> ERP/CRM applications are doing it. There is no corporation behind  
> ofbiz so its community's responsibility. Put a plan together. Make  
> it easy for people to contribute. I am sure there are tons of people  
> in community who want to contribute but don't know how.
>
> I am worried because, After working on minilang, screen widgets,  
> form widgets,  service engine, entity engine for so long I almost  
> forgot Java/J2EE skills set. What if Ofbiz does not remain as  
> popular 5 years down the road, How am I going to pay for my  
> daughters college expenses?
>
> This email is not intended to hurt anybody's feeling or scare  
> anybody. Ofbiz is in great shape, I wanted to get people to speak up  
> and help plan for future.
>
> Thanks and Regards
> Anil Patel


 

[Michael Xu (xudong)]

It is really a good thread. Especially those questions from Anil Patel last
year. But one year past, it seems ofbiz is still in the same place. Really
look forward to  more comments and actions.

--
Regards,
Michael Xu (xudong)
www.wizitsoft.com | Office: (8610) 6267 0615 ext 806 | Mobile: [phone]
9807 | Fax: [phone]


On Mon, Dec 14, 2009 at 2:23 PM, Vasanth Kamatgi <[hidden email]>wrote:

>
> I have been working on Ofbiz for the past 4 years and have got fairly good
> proficiency in all major areas of Ofbiz.  One problem I have consistently
> faced with Ofbiz is its presentation layer.  There isn’t a strict
> separation
> of UI / Code in the presentation layer.  Due to this deficiency, for any
> revamp in the UI, even though there is no associated change in the
> functionality / business logic, it takes substantial amount of developer
> time.  I see this as a major hindrance to a typical ecommerce website,
> where
> UI changes are frequent as well as significant.  For this reason, I am
> looking for the possibility of replacing the presentation layer with a more
> modular framework with good separation of concerns of UI designer and
> developer.
>
> This is an excellent post that could have thrown more light on the issue of
> replacing certain elements of Ofbiz with more powerful alternatives.
> However I see that there haven’t been many conversations on this topic for
> a
> long time now.  I would like to see more people participate.
>
> At this point, I am specifically looking at the possibility of replacing
> the
> Ofbiz presentation layer with Wicket.  I wonder if anyone had tried it out.
> In addition to people who have done this experiment, I would like to hear
> from others, on the possible pros / cons of this approach.  My objective is
> – How to make ecommerce module amenable to major UI changes (including
> swapping components from one page to another, splitting pages etc.) with
> least amount of developer involvement and UI designer controlling most of
> the activity.
>
> Thanks,
> Vasanth
>
>
> Andrew Zeneski-2 wrote:
> >
> > Anil,
> >
> > These are really great questions to ask, and I am excited to see this
> > thread start. Let me be the first to say, I agree with you 100% that
> > now is the time to plan for the future.
> >
> > When we started OFBiz in 2001, the tools available were less powerful
> > and less appealing than the ones available today. If we were starting
> > today I think a lot would be different. For example, I would probably
> > vote for JPA over writing another persistence layer. I would vote for
> > using Stripes, Wicket, or maybe JSF (but v2) for presentation. On the
> > service layer, I would prefer to use an existing framework be it EJB
> > (session beans) or some flavor of an ESB (maybe ServiceMix). In the
> > end, focus 100% on the applications and let the other projects focus
> > on each specific framework piece.
> >
> > Most of all, I would vote in favor standardized deployment. OFBiz is
> > not SAP, we just don't have enough clout to dictate how the
> > application should be deployed. People bend over backwards and design
> > their entire infrastructure around SAP, we should do the opposite;
> > allow OFBiz to adjust to a company's infrastructure (without headaches).
> >
> > The last thing I would do differently, if I could figure out a way
> > how, is to decouple the applications. So that a CRM application does
> > not require the overhead needed for Orders and Products.
> >
> > Then we have the next question, what types of applications should we
> > focus now to be the leader in the next 5 years? Do with stick with
> > ERP, or do we look to make some changes? But I think this should be a
> > thread all in itself.
> >
> > Andrew
> >
> >
> > On Oct 24, 2008, at 7:36 PM, Anil Patel wrote:
> >
> >> Hi,
> >> I am having little difficulty to envision, What Ofbiz will look like
> >> a year or two down the road?
> >>
> >> I am personally satisfied with most of core technologies of ofbiz
> >> except for Form widget. Form widgets needs some enhancements and
> >> even those don't seem too difficult. Ofbiz framework technologies
> >> made development lot easy back in day when J2EE made things
> >> impossible. Now, 7 years down the road, Java enterprise application
> >> development tool set has changed a lot.  What I am trying to get out
> >> of this thread is, What others in community think about it?"
> >>
> >> At different times, people have asked for ability to deploy ofbiz on
> >> application servers other then Tomcat, and in JEE recommended style,
> >> like create war or ear. I am curious what did these people do? Did
> >> we loose those potential ofbiz users!, Or Did they accept whatever
> >> is available and used ofbiz to solve their business problems.
> >>
> >> There are some JEE spec compliant technologies that we can use
> >> instead of home grown like,  use
> >> 1) Ice Faces (or Myfaces) instead of Form Widget
> >> 2) JPA instead of Entity engine
> >> 3) EJB instead of Service engine
> >> 4) Integrate with Pluto for Portal server
> >> 5) use third party Content management
> >>
> >> I think Ofbiz community is more interested in solving business
> >> process problems instead of building cool framework. We can focus
> >> much more on business problems if we utilize third party framework
> >> technologies. Some of the frameworks have excellent support from IDE
> >> venders, great books are available to learn, existing pool of
> >> skilled developers and many more goodies that we all know.
> >>
> >> Open source ERP space is growing. We need to think fresh. Take a
> >> break, Plan for next 5 years, Set our goals.  All other open source
> >> ERP/CRM applications are doing it. There is no corporation behind
> >> ofbiz so its community's responsibility. Put a plan together. Make
> >> it easy for people to contribute. I am sure there are tons of people
> >> in community who want to contribute but don't know how.
> >>
> >> I am worried because, After working on minilang, screen widgets,
> >> form widgets,  service engine, entity engine for so long I almost
> >> forgot Java/J2EE skills set. What if Ofbiz does not remain as
> >> popular 5 years down the road, How am I going to pay for my
> >> daughters college expenses?
> >>
> >> This email is not intended to hurt anybody's feeling or scare
> >> anybody. Ofbiz is in great shape, I wanted to get people to speak up
> >> and help plan for future.
> >>
> >> Thanks and Regards
> >> Anil Patel
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
> --
> View this message in context:
> http://n4.nabble.com/Application-framework-technology-set-tp195713p963334.html
> Sent from the OFBiz - Dev mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>