Web Framework Roadmap

An attempt to classify features and tools of "web frameworks" to help one navigate this wiki for ideas.

RDBMS

• ActiveRecord
  • Pros:
  • Cons: Hiding SQL completely is a "smell" to some
• HelpersInsteadOfWrappers - utilities that help with the tedious aspects of SQL without attempting to completely wrap it away.

GUI Interface

• Strait HTML
  • Pros: Simple if you already know HTML
  • Cons: May make switching GUI's more difficult (SeparateDomainFromPresentation)
    • Counter: Happens infrequently in practice
• Mix of strait HTML and custom functions/methods, such as "drawFormRow" (see HelpersInsteadOfWrappers)
• AJAX:
  • Pro: More desktop-like interaction capability
  • Con: Immature
• Bypass HTML/DOM entirely
  • Java:
    • Pro: Can get a more desktop-GUI-like feel
    • Con: Tends to marry your app language choice to Java. Cross-vendor support still a work-in-progress.

Perhaps this should be named WebFrameworkPatternRoadmap or perhaps WebFrameworkPatterns because it is not a list of specific products, but rather a list of techniques. Name needs more pondering.

If this page is a list of techniques, I don't think the name should contain "Framework." I think of a framework as a big, honkin' downloadable or off-the-shelf dingus into which you plug some code and some templates and ItJustWorks. -- Eliz

I don't think they are that simple except in the demos, or in the hands of those intimately familiar with it. But I agree that the title needs work.