demonstrations using WebSphere Portlet Factory.
At the beginning of the process, I knew enough to build a simple
drill-down dashboard portlet, taking data from an Excel spreadsheet.
After much experimentation, trial and error, I've now built a whole host
of different portlets using this most excellent tool - interaction with
DB2, online awareness using Lotus Sametime, Ajax type-ahead
functionality in queries, drag and drop eventing using DOJO etc. etc. etc.
The value of the tool continues to impress me, especially as I wouldn't
consider myself as a proper Java developer.
In fact, I'm so impressed, I'm actually going to attend a 4-day class in
Manchester in early October.
The sky is truly the limit.
:-)
2 comments:
Dave - how 'different' is Portlet Factory? Anecdotal evidence tells me that at first people find it confusing and difficult, but after a while can achieve fantastic productivity improvements. Is this your feeling too having spent some time with it?
Jon
Yes, I'd concur with your comments - WebSphere Portlet Factory (WPF) offers a completely different development paradigm, which is totally different to most environments.
For example, I've always used WSAD or RAD to create portlets, so (a) I need to understand the API ( do's and don'ts ) and (b) I need to write the code myself - the tooling helps, but dat code don't write itself.
Conversely, WPF works on a parametric basis - you provide the parameters, it generates the code.
Apparently, the whole factory concept came from the Computer Aided Design industry ( according to Programming Portlets: From JSR 168 to WebSphere Portal Extensions: -
http://www.davehay.f2s.com/2007/05/unashamed-plug-not-for-me-but-for.html
which kinda makes sense if you've ever used any CAD tool.
In short, one person's meat is another person's poison ( to coin a phrase ) but WPF will definitely feature in my future development plans, especially when I want to RAPIDLY create a vision using WebSphere Portal etc.
Post a Comment