Platypus has been designed to speed the development of medium-sized Enhydra applications. We define "medium-sized" as those applications that are too big for JOLT (hence require XMLC) and use a relational database for persistence. Platypus requires both XMLC and a relational database. Platypus requires some modifications to the standard Enhydra roll-out. These modifications are described here.
Platypus is intended to be the most effective Open Source Web RAD environment possible. To this end, we have released it under the terms of the GNU LGPL license in October 1999. The LGPL was chosen so that Platypus is guaranteed to remain free, but runtime objects may be used in commercial code.
Discussions relating to the further development of Platypus should take place on the Enhydra developers mailing list (enhydra@enhydra.org). If the level of traffic overwhelms that list, we will establish a separate list.
This document provides some ideas for the further development of Platypus. Hopefully, it will also proceed in directions that have not yet become obvious.
The Platypus tools in this release represent the tip of a development iceberg. Plugged In intends, with support from the Open Source community, to continue development on both Platypus and Enhydra in order to create the most effective Open Source Web RAD environment possible.
Use of Platypus revolves around the creation of configuration files. Once the format for these files stabilises, we will be evaluating the need for a graphical tool to create and edit them. The format for the configuration files is likely to change to XML sometime in the near future. The syntax used for this XML will be coordinated with the Enhydra team to ensure consistency.
When Lutris Technologies releases the ROCKS event model libraries to the public, we will evaluate potential for integration with Platypus.
As Enhydra integrates EJB support, Platypus will likely be extended to support it. Plugged In is investigating Platypus (and hence Enhydra) hooks into CORBA environments.