Doug Hall

<http://www.radrails.org/>; (Standalone download, or Eclipse plugins) At one time the standalone download was generally considered to be better than the Eclipse plugin, but I haven't checked back in quite a while.

Hence, I am not David, but I can tell you what he said regarding just such a question. At RubyConf last year, he basically said that with Ruby, a good text editor goes much further than it can, if you're programming Java. Also, the entire Rails core team uses TextMate. So, I'd give TextMate a little more time, before I switched to RadRails.

Originally posted by Michael J. Makunas:


I didn't mean use an attribute. I meant choosing between using the numeric primary key versus a human readable surrogate key (that doesn't change). Also, while you are correct, a URI should ideally not change over time, properly used 301 redirects can help.

Yes, but that's a maintenance nightmare, over time. IDs never need a redirect because they never change. Also, they uniquely identify the resource in question. Suppose you had two Tom Jones' in your organization. Do you have one URL "http://myorg.com/employees/tomjones" and the other "http://myorg.com/employees/tom_jones"? Who will know which is which, by looking at it? Yes, it's still more readable than numeric IDs, but it brings its own set of problems to the table.

Perhaps the user could just as easily do a search, and then bookmark it, if they need it more than once.

Cheers,
Doug

IDs are better for the same reason that database keys should not be an attribute - because attributes can change. This is better for the user, too, by the way, due to bookmarking.

I think I've come up with good enough names.

Between User and Role: RoleMembership ('Membership' is likely to show up again, so the "Role" prefix gives it a bit of context.)
Between Role and Right: Authority

Thanks, anyway. Feel free to comment, if you have some tips, or other examples that we might learn from.

Doug
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I'm trying to think, but nothing happens.
Pooh Bear

Hi Dav[id|e],

You can't really mix and match RESTful and non-RESTful design can you? It would seem to spoil the whole point of REST.

Also, I saw DHH's RubyConf2006 keynote, and I'm trying my best to follow his (your) advice. So far, I'm at a mental loss for naming the "things" which form the many-to-many relationships between Users and Roles, and Roles and Rights in my RESTful authorization code. Can you help? Do you have any practical tips for when a decent name isn't readily available?

Thanks!

Choice is great. There seems to be a lot of very good frameworks out there to suit the needs of Java developers. I'm fairly new to Java, and looking for a good foundation for developing projects for - well for the rest of my life. I've done my homework to some degree. I've read through the entire text and examples of "Head First Java", and many other introductory texts. I've created some simple, non-GUI programs. I'm sold on Java - especially for server-side projects.

Now it's time to dive headfirst into a Web-based project. I'd like to use a solid foundation like Spring, but before I make the first step, let me give some requirements.

� It has to be capable of making me fairly productive BY MYSELF. I don't have a team of developers behind me. I might in the future, but not now. I know this is probably up to the individual, and some programmers are ten times better than others. But to some degree, the framework must play a role in productivity. If it's too complicated, the payback may not be worth the effort. (Here's where having very good examples helps.)

� It has to be well supported. I have no doubts that Spring is one of the best in this regard.

� It doesn't have to be open source - provided it's not too expensive. Open Source is prefered, though.

I've been favoring WebObjects, just because it's been around for a while. It's still well-regarded from those in the know. Also, it has GUI helpers, like WebObjects Builder, which helps with productivity. It also has an enviable EOModel (ORM) framework built in. It doesn't seem as well supported by Apple over the past few years, however, so I'm a little skeptical to invest too much time on it.

Can someone give me a good comparison of WebObjects and Spring/Tapestry/Hibernate? Will this combination make me fairly prodcutive in a short amount of time, or should I get my feet wet with something a bit simpler, first.

Thanks,
Doug Hall