What technology shall we use ?

[Paolo]

Hi,

In order to get started with the development process of a shopping
cart, we need to decide which technology to use.

Here at KonaKart we have a lot of experience using GWT from Google and
so this would be our frst choice. It allows you to program in Java, it
uses AJAX technology and now there is quite a rich set of widgets
http://code.google.com/p/gwt-ext/ .

Before starting however, we would like to hear from our members about
their own thoughts and suggestions since these could convince us to
use a different technology or we could even develop more than one
shopping cart in parallel.

Please post your ideas about what technology to use !

Paolo

[LAC]

I like the technologies that are being suggested. It gives a good base
of technology. I would like to use Spring if that is possible and
JPA. Thank you

LAC

[Paolo]

Hi,

Were you thinking of using Spring to implement a model view controller
architecture ? As far as I know the controller part of MVC is
definitely missing from standard GWT and so we could either:

-Hard code it in GWT handler classes. This would require a compilation
to change the flow of the application.
-We could build our own lightweight controller mechanism where these
handler classes are configured from a database or XML file.
-We could interface to a framework such as Spring. Interesting
discussion http://www.theserverside.com/news/thread.tss?thread_id=44468
.

Any preferences ?

Paolo

> > Paolo- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[nitros]

Can we do the front end of konakart using GWT 1.5? Replace the whole
Struts/Tiles with GWT.

For the server side (KKEng & KKAdminEng), how about EJB 3/hibernate or
maybe openJPA.

Paolo, since you are driving this group, could you please add a post
how do you want us to contribute. As you know most of the people
using Konakart are doing it to run their eCommerce site, which means
people are biased towards making profit rather than contributing. A
clear post of what kind of contributors you are looking for will weed
out the unwanted.

On Jun 24, 10:39 am, Paolo <sid...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>

> Were you thinking of using Spring to implement a model view controller
> architecture ? As far as I know the controller part of MVC is
> definitely missing from standard GWT and so we could either:
>
> -Hard code it in GWT handler classes. This would require a compilation
> to change the flow of the application.
> -We could build our own lightweight controller mechanism where these
> handler classes are configured from a database or XML file.
> -We could interface to a framework such as Spring. Interesting

> discussionhttp://www.theserverside.com/news/thread.tss?thread_id=44468

[ming...@konakart.com]

This group is focussing on the development of open source clients only
- therefore the back-end KonaKart engines are out of scope.

The new GWT 1.5 would be my particular choice for at least one of the
store-fronts that could be built by the group. I'm not yet convinced
of the benefits of adding Spring just yet but am open to all such
discussions.

As for the development process and how contributions could be made we
will have to wait and see what the interest is (and the chosen
technologies) and take it from there. I suspect that the KonaKart
team will want to establish some kind of techical framework that
allows others to contribute in a well-defined manner - but the
guidelines will be published later..

Ming

> > > - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -

[Paolo]

Hi Nitros,

The intention of the group is to gather together some developers
(outside of the KonaKart team) who would like to contribute in the
construction of storefronts using one or more different technologies
(i.e. GWT, Open Laszlo, Flash, ASP etc.). The projects will be
completely open source but obviously any developers will be "experts"
and so could eventually make consultancy revenue if the store fronts
are used by companies.

KonaKart already provides an admin app (client and server) as well as
a server application engine which the storefronts will interface to.
This is the same engine used today by the JSP / Struts / GWT eCommerce
app that can be downloaded from our web site. Therefore with a
relatively small amount of work (compared to developing a full blown
shopping cart app) a number of innovative storefronts could be
developed and made available by developers that are competent in a UI
based technolgy.

So to summarise, our aim is to give people the chance to develop a
comprehensive shopping cart using any UI technology that they are
comfortable with and then to make it available on the market. The role
of the KonaKart team will be to help out and maybe add new API calls
when necessary as well as to publicise new storefronts from our web
site when these become available.

-Paolo

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[nitros]

Now I understand it better. Thanx for the clarification. For our
business, we are developing from ground up the web interface (front
end) but it is too customized for our specific business, due to which
we had to extend all Konakart's session classes (com.konakart.al.*).

I think if Konakart provide hooks for those classes, similar to the
way it is done for the engines in 2.2.6, It will achieve true
versatility to be deployed for any industry. Right now, it is mainly
for generic ecommerce. In our case, we had to make it location based
as well as add/remove modules (ex. we do not need shipping completely)

[LAC]

Yes you are correct, I was thinking of using Spring as the
controller. In fact I really want to see this application be as light
weight as possible. The lighter the better!!!

LAC

On Jun 24, 10:39 am, Paolo <sid...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>

> Were you thinking of using Spring to implement a model view controller
> architecture ? As far as I know the controller part of MVC is
> definitely missing from standard GWT and so we could either:
>
> -Hard code it in GWT handler classes. This would require a compilation
> to change the flow of the application.
> -We could build our own lightweight controller mechanism where these
> handler classes are configured from a database or XML file.
> -We could interface to a framework such as Spring. Interesting

> discussionhttp://www.theserverside.com/news/thread.tss?thread_id=44468

[injo]

I would like it as extensible and flexible as possible. Most of the
effort I have is in extending and adapting Konakart to fit specific
business requirements.

Most of the time this is just tweaking rather than wholesale changes.
I am not familiar with GWT, but it seems harder to adapt compared with
the Tiles/JSP approach used in the rest of the App (Is this a correct
understanding on my part or just lack of knowledge???).

I like Spring as a "plumbing" technology and think it would work well
with Konakart.

[Ming]

One of the key advantages of the GWT technology is that it gives you a
snappy AJAX client that you can't get easily with JSP approaches..
It may not as flexible in terms of its configuration (like Struts/
Tiles) but I find it to be a very friendly development environment -
and all in java... so it's definitely flexible in terms of what you
can do with it.

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[boogie]

You should consider JavaServer Faces (JSF).
The Sun JSF RI combined with custom component libs such as Tomahawk,
RichFaces and IceFaces provide a powerful and flexible GUI
alternative. Both RichFaces and IceFaces are really good AJAX
frameworks that don't require JavaScript knowledge. I also recommend
using Facelets to be able to reuse templates and pages. JSF works well
with Spring as well, but that's a different discussion.