I’ve been having a blast writing a couple of search apps lately.
If you’ve read my other entries you already know that I favor separating the User Interface, Search, and Data layers more distinctly than the ODE bean that puts ODE objects into a JSP’s request object. Now I have a more pragmatic reason. Have you ever tried to debug a JSP page???? It will drive you nuts! And believe me, building a search app is complex enough that you don’t want to deal with not being able to debug your work.
“Okay,” you might think to yourself, “that’s fine but in the WebSphere Commerce model should I build a Commerce command or just create a JAVA package?” Great question. I’m going to be exploring that more myself. If I learn anything of special note, I’ll let you know.
What I do know is that if you go down the Commerce command route, you had better be very sure that you won’t want access to the ODE search capabilities outside of Commerce. I mean, think about it. Are there going to be times when you may want a search interface into your site’s resources other than your retail view? BTW , be careful to follow your licensing constraints. You can’t buy the ODE/ Commerce integeration module and then turn around and use it for just anything.
