- I thought it might be nice to point out some good things about DDE. I keep posting about what horrid nightmare it is, but I never say what’s cool. So here some cool. Those of you who’ve been doing this more than a short while will find this old hat, but there it is.
XPAGES:
- XPages is a real learning curve, but once one “gets over the hump” it’s completely astounding how utterly excellent they are. The true magic in DDE is called “custom controls”, which essentially allow OO web development. All presentation and code (client and server side) may conceivably be packaged into a custom control, and that control simply plopped where-ever one wants it. This is all enabled by JSF, and the brilliance for Lotus was in selecting that technology to base XPages on instead of rolling their own from scratch. In DDE it’s child’s play to create, manage, and employ custom controls, such that once a “library” of them exist it’s practically plug and play web design. Mind boggling!
FACETS:
- DDE calls these “Editable Areas”, which I find more than little bizarre, particularly since the XML in the Source tab uses the tag for them. (grin) Regardless, this gem from JSF is more than a little incredible. You know how there’s no computed Subforms? Facets fix this. The magic is that a facet can use the loaded= attribute, which enables anyJavaScript to tell it load or not … exactly like a computed Subform … except that one is no longer restricted to mere Formula. Wowzers! And here everyone was complaining, myself included! I have facets multiple levels deep, and it’s sooo trivial to completely re-organize things it simply ain’t even funny.
ECLIPSE:
- Despite the torrent of implementation issues, using Eclipse is a gigantic leap forward from Designer. The implementation is not Eclipse’s fault. That’s still an excellent IDE that’s flexible enough to even allow it to replace Designer. In particular, being able to use the Source tab at all is a such an unmitigated joy that I can hardly describe it.
CODE FOLDING:
- Another big bonus from Eclipse is code folding. I use this all the time writing Java code in Ganymede, and now I can do the same with DDE. Since it’s XML, an XPage’s line count blossoms pretty quickly, often with the same sort of info over and over (particularly on a “form” control). It’s a significant bonus to be able to collapse the items I’m not currently editing; this reduces “clutter” in that editor window and means I see mainly the code I’m (currently) interested in without having to scroll past hundreds of lines of “chafe” to get there.
REFERENCE_CHECKING:
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If I rename a custom control, everything that references it will get a red “X” in the Applications/Custom Controls list. It would be nice to see Eclipse’s refactor fuctionality, but this is certainly a viable alternative. I rename controls all the time, because I’m learning and I create them with names that never seem to reflect their final function, and it’s a blessing and a real time saver to have all the referring controls identified for me.
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I know I’ll find more as I get into more complexity. I’ve only been doing this part-time for three months.
Thanks for your time…