1 8 WEBEVENTs or WAMs

LANSA Web Functions

1.8 WEBEVENTs or WAMs?

WEBEVENT functions and WAMs can be mixed in a single application.

If you already have applications developed using WEBEVENTs, those existing applications will continue to serve the purpose for which they were designed and you will be able to modify and enhance them into the future. WEBEVENT technology has been significantly extended with the addition of support for new data types, language syntax and constructs and the removal of significant limitations on field and list sizes.

However, a point may come in the lifecycle of your LANSA web applications when it is appropriate to begin using WAMs. You may wish to exploit WAMs in existing WEBEVENT applications in these circumstances:

  • When you have a requirement to extend an existing web application beyond the browser - perhaps to hand-held devices. Of course, this is a business requirement, which may necessitate adopting WAM technology.
  • When you are extending an existing web application with a significant number of discrete "chunks" of new functionality. You might develop these new parts using WAMs.
  • When making major revisions driven by business requirements that will substantially impact large parts of your application. Depending on the extent of the impact, you might decide that this is an opportune time to "future-proof" your web applications with WAMs.

Some of the implementation details of WEBEVENT and WAM applications are different and there are certain considerations and certain techniques you need to adopt. Refer to WAM and WEBEVENT Interoperability Techniques for details.

In general, you should use WAMs for new web applications.

Why did LANSA develop WAM technology?

Two key points stand out:

1.  Web technologies are evolving very quickly. HTML is no longer the only way to deliver web content. It is imperative that web application development in LANSA is more readily adaptable to new technologies as they emerge.

2.  It is clear that application development is heading towards a component-based future and LANSA offers support for component-based development. WEBEVENT are functions and their architecture is not best-suited to a component-based world. For this reason, it is imperative that LANSA allows you to take full advantage of component-based techniques.