Question

I’m not a Web Developer, and I don’t know a lot about the web application frameworks out there.

Recently, however, I got into Wt. It’s a web framework written in C++ (that’s why I got into it), but what impressed me the most is the idea it’s based on.

Its API is different from any web framework I ever heard of (CppCMS, Yii, Django, Pylons, Zope, Drupals, Java Servlets, Struts …): a new Application object gets created for any user session, and it stays alive until the session expires (only at this point the Application object gets destroied). This Application object works like a desktop window: you put Widgets in it (widgets like forms, links, labels …); when the user clicks on a link (when the HTTP server receives a new GET/POST request) a function gets called on the object tight to the user session (in a nice Signal/Slot way), which can remove/add/change the widgets, thus changing the page the user will see.

As I said, I’m not very skilled with web frameworks, I develop almost only desktop applications; maybe for this reason I think this paradigm behind Wt is great.

I’d like to know what are the pros and cons of this framework API in respect to the other ones, and if there are other frameworks (also in other languages) based on the same concepts.

Answer 1

Wt is a great framework for its intended range of applications.

Wt is great for :

• web apps tightly coupled to a session, i.e.
  • made to be accessed only by users that are logged in (except the landing page)
  • display a lot of user-dependent content (so not for a wiki)
  • relying heavily on state
• web apps that need to have a lot of controls/buttons and user input.

For exemple, I plan to write a browser MMORPG. Pages will all be having a state tied to a user, and there will be a lot of buttons. Wt is perfect for that. I used to be a Ruby on Rails developper, and switching to Wt for this kind of app was a great moment. It’s increadibly cumbersome to design forms with traditional frameworks that try to enforce pure REST.

Wt would also be perfect for a control interface on some process. For example, an interface allowing your customers to configure their adword campain, etc.

Of course, using Wt is not perfect regarding control and separation, but it allows extremely fast development when you need only the “classic” features (buttons, editors, etc.)

So as a rule of thumb, if you are trying to put a desktop application on the web (which is a great idea, removing the need to deploy and update on your customers’ machines), Wt is a good candidate.

Also, if you are interfacing with an existing C++ codebase, Wt has an advantage.