News
14 October 2011 - Case Study: Large-scale Pure OO at the Irish Government
Richard Pawson presented this case Study at QCon London. A video recording has today been released on InfoQ.
10 October 2011 - Naked Objects for .NET goes Open Source
As of today, Naked Objects for .NET, previously available only as a proprietary product, is now fully open source under the Microsoft Public License (MS-PL). The source code is hosted on CodePlex, though for most people the most convenient way to install and use the framework will be via the NuGet Package Manager. The various 'NakedObjects' NuGet packages include a comprehensive sample application, as well as Code Snippets and Item Templates.
Naked Objects is a framework that supports the naked objects pattern for the .NET platform. It can take a domain object model, written as POCOs but following a few very simple conventions, and dynamically create one or more complete user interfaces for it without requiring a single line of user-interface code to be written. (This is achieved using 'reflection' - not by the more conventional approach 'code generation' or 'scaffolding'). It is highly effective in support of Domain-Driven Design, object-oriented modelling, and/or Agile Development.
'Naked Objects MVC' builds upon the core framework to create a complete web-based user interface, using ASP.NET MVC 3. The generic user interface may be customised via the .CSS, by adding custom views, or custom controllers, as needed. Entity Framework is used to persist objects on a database. Security may be handled simply via Forms Authentication and attribute-based authorisation, or more comprehensively via Microsoft WIF and an STS.
Naked Objects was developed by the Naked Objects Group, based in the UK. Managing Director, Richard Pawson, is credited with first identifying the 'naked objects pattern' in his PhD thesis. The first version of the Naked Objects framework was written on the Java platform and was open sourced in 2002. In 2010, the company passed the full rights to the Java version over to the Apache Software Foundation, where it now forms part of the Apache Isis framework. Starting in 2006 the company re-wrote the framework specifically for the .NET platform, taking full use of emerging .NET capabilities including LINQ, Entity Framework, WIF, ASP.NET MVC and marketed it as a commercial product. Richard Pawson comments: "It was always our hope that we would eventually be able to open source the .NET product in the same way that we did for the Java product. I am very pleased to announce that this has now happened."
The Department of Social Protection in Ireland (the government agency responsible for administering benefit schemes including State Pensions and Jobseekers Allowance ) is building its new generation of core benefits-administration systems using the Naked Objects framework. Assistant Secretary General, Niall Barry, comments: “In the last five years we have delivered more than 30 new core business applications, on-time and on-budget - and Naked Objects has played a critical role in that success. We have seen even greater productivity with the latest Naked Objects for .NET platform and I am delighted at the news that the whole framework is now going open source. As well as the cost savings to our own organisation, we hope that the open sourcing will encourage more public sector organisations to explore the benefits that this technology offers."
23 June 2011 - Microsoft Case Study mentions Naked Objects for .NET
See Microsoft Case Studies. OK, it's a small mention, as Microsoft favours mentioning its own technologies that were involved. We'd do the same ;-)