Reflective Web Application (webide)

Preamble So, this question has already been answered, but as it was my first question for this project, I'm going to continue to reference it in other questions I ask for this proj

Solution 1:

Conceptually, you would be building widgets, a widget factory, and a factory making factory.

So, you would have to find all the different types of interactions that could be possible in making a widget, between widgets, within a factory, and between multiple widget making factories to get an idea.

Something to keep on top of how far would be too far to abstract?

**I think you would need to be able to abstract a few layers completely for the application space itself. Then you'd have to build some management tool for it all. **

- Presentation, Workflow and the Data tier.

Presentation: You are either receiving feedback, or putting in input. Usually as a result of clicking, or entering something. A simple example is making dynamic web forms in a database. What would you have to store in a database about where it comes/goes from? This would probably make up the presentation layer. This would probably be the best exercise to start with to get a feel for what you may need to go with.

Workflow: it would be wise to build a simple workflow engine. I built one modeled on Windows Workflow that I had up and running in 2 days. It could set the initial event that should be run, etc. From a designer perspective, I would imagine a visio type program to link these events. The events in the workflow would then drive the presentation tier.

Data: You would have to store the data about the application as much as the data in the application. So, form, event, data structures could possibly be done by storing xml docs depending on whether you need to work with any of the data in the forms or not. The data of the application could also be stored in empty xml templates that you fill in, or in actual tables. At that point you'd have to create a table creation routine that would maintain a table for an app to the spec. Google has something like this with their google DB online.

Hope that helps. Share what you end up coming up with.

Solution 2:

Why use PHP?

Appjet does something really similar using 100% Javascript on the client and server side with rhino.

This makes it easier for programmers to use your service, and easier for you to deploy. In fact even their data storage technique uses Javascript (simple native objects), which is a really powerful idea.