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Prashant
Patil ,
the 'techie' does not care much about technologies.
He feels that technologies are means to a deeper end
and not ends in themselves.
Prashant joined metalayer in April, 2002. He is a brilliant
software engineer and has acquired a very deep understanding
of the metalayer technologies.
Interview
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TECHNOLOGIES USED IN METALAYER 1.0
Meta
Data Store:
Processing:
- 40%
compiled C# or Java (C++) - decreasing
- 40%
XSLT (precompiled and increasing)
- 20%
JavaScript client side DOM scripting
Server
side Technology:
- Linux
and Java (planned to re-implement core modules in C)
- Microsoft.NET
and C#
- Both
solutions are equal in terms of functionality.
Client
side:
- Static
version (pure HTML), running on every browser and HTML
device.
- Dynamic
version: Fully W3C DOM 1 compliant JavaScript DOM manipulation.
Fully compatible with Netscape 7, and IE 5 above.
CORE
DEVELOPMENT PRINCIPLES
- Simplicity
- Flexibility
- Idea
driven technology selection (never technology driven)
- Adoption
of an XML philosophy (where the 'X' - the eXtensibility
is the most important)
WE
ARE BUILDING THE LAYER - NOT TECHNOLOGY
Java,
C#, .NET, Linux - Who cares? We are building the layer, not
technology. Technology for us has no value by itself, but
strictly follows, is driven, and and inspires our ideas and
concepts. Technologies with their different philosophies inspire,
but never change the IDEA and the concept - We experienced
this several times while taking in different technologies
into the layer - first with XML, then with XSLT and its functional
programming paradigm. And latest, by adopting the Java/Linux
technology and philosophy within the technology lab.
"There
is no "right" or "wrong" with technology
- just feel what is the best or most appropriate, and embrace
as much as you can. Technology has to be as simple as possible
and as flexible as possible."
XML
is the dominating technology in metalayer because the semi-structured
data model fits perfectly to our domain. XML and XSLT with
the functional programming paradigm has inspired and fundamentally
influenced the development of the layer since the beginning.
Four months ago, we decided to implement the new metalayer
1.0 platform in a Java as well as C# .NET environment.
Currently Java is leading the development, but this may change
later. The capabilities of Java or C# .NET are similar, and
no clear advantage can be gained by choosing one of the two.
Introducing Java into metalayer meant for us to deeply understand
its philosophy and basic principles and we got access to a
whole developer community of knowledge and wisdom.
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