"It's Time for UIs To Become Service-Oriented," Says Appcelerator's Jeff Haynie

Co-founder & CEO Haynie believes in the need for a clean separation the application from services

Feb. 13, 2008 04:30 AM

"One of the keys to unlocking the full return on investment in SOA is the ability to build service-oriented UIs," contends the co-founder & CEO of Appcelerator, Jeff Haynie. These SOUIs, as he calls them, are clients designed to consume services, regardless of language or platform. Haynie believes Appcelerator's approach truly zeros in on the need for a clean separation the application from services in an agile development model.

The remark comes in Haynie's responses to questions posed to him by Jeremy Geelan, Conference Chair of SOA World Conference & Expo 2008 East in New York City this coming June (June 23-24, 2008).

The wide-ranging Q&A session also covers Haynie's plans to turn the Appcelerator platform into the next-generation platform of choice for Rich Internet Applications by making it one that embraces what he calls "the true essence of open-source," i.e. letting the community adapt and expand the solution to suit the widest possible range of options, without limitations or propriety.

Key to the Appcelerator approach is Haynie's perception of how SOA and RIAs interface.

"Companies have invested a significant amount of money in SOA – and continue to do so," Haynie notes. Building service-oriented UIs is Appcelerator's answer to unlocking the ROI. He continues:"By de-coupling client and service development and deployment, we’re able to enable UIs to communicate with services using lightweight messages – these message contracts define how the UI and its target services communicate.

When you develop an RIA client on Appcelerator, it can consume services written in any programming language without changing code. This gives developers the capability to change their programming language or simultaneously consume services written in different programming languages, without having to make changes to the client application. This capability is unmatched by other platforms in the market today.

As you’ll see in future releases of our product, we’ll continue to expand the range of capabilities and features around services – working closely with our community to deliver the features and capabilities necessary to fully leverage their SOA investments.

We believe this approach truly zeros in on the need for a clean separation of the application from services in an agile development model. SOA-ready RIAs can be built faster, providing enterprises with more options for visualizing data and information from multiple sources."

▪ Appcelerator Acquires Aptana

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