Miscellaneous-B

Dave Thomas again, this time mentioning Naked Objects, says (in http://pragprog.com/pragdave/Practices/MechPolicy.rdoc) stuff that exactly echos the kind of thinking I had in mind wrt flexible workflows in my APNIC document.

When I first started thinking about this, I was reminded of the audience discussions that sometimes erupt when I talk about Naked Objects. A Naked Objects application exposes the core business objects of an application directly to the end user. They can manipulate these in any way the objects allow: there is no overall application GUI imposing a certain way of doing things. A Naked Objects system provides mechanism, but little in the way of policy. When I describe this, some folks have a strong reaction against the idea. “Without high-level policy imposed by the GUI (scripting, or series of modal dialogs that have to be filled in in a proscribed order) how can we ensure our users do everything that needs to be done?” they ask. And its a good question. Experienced users, folks who understand the domain, love Naked Object systems because they get the control and flexibility they need to get the job done. But inexperienced users can be confounded by that same flexibility: “what should I do now?”. (In a way, this also relates back to the Dreyfus model of skills acquisition: beginners need to be guided, while experts need to be left alone to get on with their jobs.)

In the Naked Objects world, it turns out that there’s a compromise. Because the Naked Objects are themselves just Java business objects, there’s nothing stopping you putting a more conventional view and controller on top of them, converting your Naked Objects application into a conventional GUI or Struts-style app. And, because the objects are the same beneath the covers, you could probably arrange to run both the Naked Objects and conventional application at the same time. The conventional application would have less flexibility and functionality, but would be easier for casual users. The Naked Objects system would have full flexibility for more experienced users.