Writing web apps should be easier. I was tossing around writing a tool using J2EE with a friend. I said I could do it in about 40 hours. He said he could do the same thing in Lotus Notes in about 4 hours. Of course, when everyone on the team is forced to use Notes, then it is an option, but in the real world (heh) not many people have Notes installed. Back to web apps being easier... I should be able to write a web app in 4 hours. I shouldn't have to care about Hibernate or Struts or Torque or JSPs or Taglibs. I should be able to open my browser, start a new "form", tell that form what fields I want. I should be able to tell it how to group those fields and use them. I should be able to create a working "system" just by using a wizard.
The hard part is customizing it. Making it pretty. I bet if I sat down and tried, I could whip up a system that would allow for the creation of other systems, but who would use it?
Of course there are systems that do this already, but they are aimed at very specific solutions. CMS systems, Shopping Cart Systems, Bloggers, etc... The only system that really comes close to what I would want is Remedy's Action Request System (ARS). ARS could be used to do ANYTHING. It had a nice GUI, a robust scripting language and was easy on the eyes. And the last time I used it was back in 1998. They had the right idea, I wonder if anyone out there is building something like that, but web based.
Posted by carl at May 9, 2003 12:59 AM
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