OpenSource EOF

So long without writing here... but this nightmare took me too much of my time...
In the meantime I had been learning and applying the so called DNA Computing; interesting , but not the aim of these lines.

I found an open implementation of Apple's Objective-C EOF in SourceForge.net... it includes source for an EOModeler, for some Adaptors, and for the frameworks EOAccess and EOControl. Even I am missing the EOInterface layer, that may be replaced with Cocoa Bindings... hopefully!

Intel inside: first view

I'd just acquired my first Intel Mac; a modest 17" super iMac running a 2 GHz Xeon. My first surprise was to find Xcode 2.4 with WO included. My second surprise was to find out that Cocoa EO remains there; even more surprising was that, by importing and compiling an "old" Cocoa EO project, the app simply runs... this means that the Java Bridge remains there which implies, by the way, that I can slow down my discovery on how to replace it.

The bad news is that new projects —created inside the Intel machine— does not compile (yet) in a PPC machine... I am not sure about the reasons, but I will find out!

For the record: to start a new Cocoa EO app inside this new machine was not straight forward. Here the steps to accomplish this.

1. install Xcode and WebObjects.
2. run Interface Builder and import the EnterpriseObjects.palette (which is inside /Developer/Extras/Palettes).
3. create or import an EOModel.
4. in Finder, go to

/Library/Application Support/Apple/Developer Tools/Project Templates/Application/Cocoa-Java Application/

and change the extension of the file —indeed the folder— CocoaApp.xcodeproj to .pbproj .
5. run Xcode and create a new project of type
Cocoa Enterprise Objects Application
and follow the wizard's instructions.
6. define your interface and add your code.
7. compile and run.

One more thing... for me was more convenient to change a Preference: in the File Types pane, change the folders>wrapper>wraper.eomodel to be edited with EOModeler (which is inside the folder /Developer/Applications/WebObjects/).

Suerte!

On Java & Objective-C

The main source of Objective-C frameworks is Steve Jobs and his team. They started to use this language since they were selling the NeXT machine. When NeXT buys Apple (for a negative amount of money ;^) they recompiled the operating system OpenStep to run into Apple's hardware; since then, it is know as Mac OS X. These are all old news. One more: Java becomes fashioned more or less in the same time — a bit before, to be more precise.

NeXT was forced to move one of its most valuable pieces of software, WebObjects, from Objective-C to Java; but they wanted to keep it "native" inside OS X... so, they coded the so called Java Bridge, a (never too nice, but useful) piece of software which allows to communicate the JVM and the Obj-C runtime. With this tool at hand it is possible to code (to develop) applications which have the beauty interfaces (and useful) frameworks of Cocoa (the front-end of OS X) and have also all the database connectivity developed for WebObjects, the so called Enterprise Objects Framework. The result: the best client/server apps in the market.

The bad news (well, not so new) is that Apple is giving up on the Java Bridge... this means that I will have to port all my code to use something else in order to provide nice and useful interfaces to my users, while keeping the database connectivity easy to manage... not an easy task, but it has to be done =:o(