Frequently Asked Questions

General Questions

• What is Javeline PlatForm?

  Javeline PlatForm is an evolutionary stable web-application development toolkit. Under development for 7 years. It solves many of the difficult programming issues related to building web applications and applications in general. Databinding, Undo/Redo, Compatibility, Communication, Skinning and Layouts all come easy with Javeline PlatForm.

• Under which license is Javeline PlatForm released?

  The core of PlatForm is released under the GPL license. We also offer an enterprise license. Several of the components are released under the LGPL.

• What is the long-term vision for Javeline PlatForm?

  Javeline PlatForm is a way of-developing applications. It is not so much tied to HTML. As JavaScript is gaining more momentum with runtimes such as Microsoft Silverlight and Adobe Flash, the future looks bright. Javeline PlatForm cleanly decoupled from HTML and the way of working can be extended into the future platform as well.

Development Related

• What is declarative development?

  Declarative development is like having a design-blueprint for a car, whereas imperative programming is having a huge instruction sequence for robots to use to build the car.
  
  This means that declarative programming is a higher-order development tool, and you manipulate a structure much closer to the end-result (the design) than with imperative programming (the instruction sequence).
  
  However ,as the declarative model of the car becomes more and more sophisticated, the model extends. Now the trick is to not overdo the encoding of the declarative structure.Taking a declarative abstraction beyond its scope can quickly cause bloat and inefficiency. Imagine trying to encode the logic of the heating system into your spatially-oriented car design. In such cases it is not a failure of the abstraction that you cannot encode everything in it, it is a consequence of the required specialization of your abstraction, because it simplifies a certain set of problems.
  
  With Javeline PlatForm we have been acutely aware of this issue, and made a dual-model (declarative and imperative) approach possible so an optimal route can be chosen for each situation. In real world numbers, this means that you can create 90% of your application using the much easier declarative approach, and write the remaining 10% using the APIs to write your own logic without being blocked or hindered by an overzealous declarative approach.

• Where can I download Javeline PlatForm?

• What is most difficult about Javeline PlatForm?

  Javeline PlatForm requires a slight change of perspective to be able to encode baseline application logic (undo/redo/select/change/save/load) using the declarative approach.

• Where can I talk to other Javeline PlatForm developers?

• What are the advantages of Javeline PlatForm applications versus. desktop applications?

  Javeline PlatForm applications run online, establishing the usual set of benefits for online applications, while minimizing the usual set of negatives for online applications. Javeline PlatForm applications can address large application complexity and deliver features previously thought extremely difficult or impossible in a web-application.

• What are the advantages of Javeline PlatForm applications versus static page refresh HTML pages?

  Javeline PlatForm creates a full client-site state. The server becomes an abstract "service provider," delivering requested information on demand. This enables faster development time, clearer separation between tasks and re-use of backend services.
  
  This goes beyond merely adding a few Ajax things to an HTML site. PlatForm is ready for where Ajax can ultimately go.

• What are the advantages of Javeline PlatForm applications versus proprietary plugin based solutions (Flex, Silverlight, Java)?

  The no plugin-argument is very simple. No installation required on the client, no special requirements of binary components. All that plugin-based solutions will need an up-to-date binary version of the software installed on the client, which can go against company security regulations (see Banks) or otherwise required updates that need to be rolled out to all machines by IT.

• On which browsers does Javeline PlatForm run?

  Opera 9.1+, Firefox 1+, IE 5.5+, Safari 1.4+, and possibly others but those are untested.

• What is the footprint of the library?

  Javeline PlatForm can be packaged using the Packager application. One of its features is support for IFDEFs, which are used extensively to turn features on and off. Another feature is to obfuscate the code. This usually removes between 25% and 40% of the size. The library in total is about 850KB non-obfuscated with all features turned on. For a general application, the size is between 130KB and 260KB non-obfuscated. It is usually wise to send it gzipped across the line. This will give it a general over-the-line size of 50-80KB.

• Do you follow the standards?

  Yes, we use XHTML, XML, XSLT, Xpath, CSS, SOAP, ECMAScript, XMLRPC, JSON and HTTP(S) among others

• Is your framework built on another framework

  No, Javeline PlatForm has been in development since August 2000. It started with vcXMLRPC, one of the first open source Ajax libraries available.

• Are there any cheatsheets available?

  Yes, you can find them here