Timothy
Parker Consulting Incorporated
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Lutris Enhydra 3.0 Lutris Enhydra is a web application design tool, although
that description doesn’t really cover the entire scope of Enhydra.
Enhydra is composed of a set of development tools which allows web-based
applications to be created and rolled out, all with an ease that seems strange
compared to the efforts involved with some other application design tools which
add on a web component. The target
applications for Enhydra are somewhat specific to those that can benefit from
frequent updating of a Web page, such as database applications or pages with
frequently updated numbers like stock quotes.
That’s because the key to Enhydra is its ability to generate
dynamically updating pages using Java and XML. Enhydra is open source, which may
be important to some. Learning to use Enhydra takes a little while.
The latest version is easy to work with than earlier releases, thanks in
no small part to improved documentation, although there is still a steep
learning curve even for experienced developers.
Still, a few days of playing around with Enhydra and mocking up some Web
pages will provide enough experience for most developers. If you are not
familiar with Java and HTML, as well as the UNIX make facility, the learning
curve is dramatically steeper, because Java code is necessary for Enhydra
applications. There are application builder wizards included with Enhydra that
simplify the development a little, but these cease to be useful as the
application complexity grows. Enhydra is composed of two distinct parts: the application
server (called the “multiserver”) that runs Enhydra-developed applications
either stand-alone or with a Web site, and the application framework is a set of
Java classes use by run-time Enhydra applications. In addition, Enhydra has a
set of tools that are used to create the application in the first place.
An Enhydra application is composed of application objects used to build
the larger application, and a presentation object used to generate Web pages
dynamically. Coding in Enhydra does require very good programming skills, but
the tool does allow dynamic generation of Web pages more easily than hard-coding
the page code itself. Enhydra can be loaded under Windows, Solaris, Linux, and
several UNIX versions. The Java Development Kit should be installed prior to
installing Enhydra. Under Windows, Enhydra uses a UNIX shell environment. We
tested Enhydra under RedHat 6.2, and it installed easily enough using RPM.
Documentation is on-line, using a Web browser for viewing. A printed copy should
be generated for developers, as you’ll need the documentation quite a lot when
getting started with Enhydra. There are two versions of Enhydra available.
The Professional Edition includes Borland’s Jbuilder for Java code
creation, while the Standard Edition does not.
However, Jbuilder can be downloaded for free from the Borland Web site. If you’ve used earlier releases of Enhydra, the new
version 3 adds some important features to the toolset. There is now support for
Java Server Pages and Java Servlet. For those who use Oracle’s Jdeveloper IDE,
it’s now integrated with Enhydra. Also, there’s a new load-balancing
capability, as well as dynamic recompilation for XMLC classes. Working with Enhydra was a mixed bag for us.
It took a while to get used to the Enhydra toolset and the way
applications need to be developed for the Multiserver.
Once this was mastered, though, it became obvious that Enhydra would be a
much faster way to develop dynamic Web pages. If you are an experienced Java
coder, Enhydra will help boost your productivity and allow you do perform more
Web tricks. If you’re not in that
category, you’ll have a very steep learning curve that will probably frustrate
more than help. The problem is not
Enhydra itself, but the sheer amount of material necessary to be mastered.
With Enhydra costing only $99 for the Standard Edition, it’s hard not
to take a look at it for Web site development.
The effort spent mastering the tool will pay off in better dynamic Web
pages. Enhydra $99 Summary: An inexpensive dynamic Web application toolkit. Some really nifty features but a steep learning curve. |
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tparker@tpci.com with
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