Session 605: Moving to WebObjects 5

A much more positive session than I expected. I thought there was going to be a much longer list of serious issues to tackle when upgrading applications from WO4.5 to WO5.

Performance has increased moderately to significantly depending on the deployment platform, and the core frameworks are almost completely API compatible. There are minor differences in some areas, and one or two not so minor (but not dealstoppers), especially with respect to input validation. The JavaConverter source code translator program can convert Objective-C and WO4.5 Java classes to WO5 java source. It's advertised to get the developer 80% of the way through the porting effort. A demo showed how to fix a few things that comprise the remaining 20%.

The only major new feature that I can remember them discussing was a very powerful logging class. I think it reinvents the wheel that Log4j created ages ago, but whatever.

More sample code was shown that I'm not sure the developer community at large would ever see again. They said they would make it available so let's hope. They made a lot of demo stuff available last year (I didn't attend in person), but their attitude seemed a little insincere when asked about making the source available.

All in all, I look forward to using 5 and moving our apps there as soon as possible. No more Java Bridge, no more Java 1.1 limitations, more deployment options, and it's still free.