Tabula rasa

Nothing is so scary as an empty blog. Where do you start? What is worth writing about and what is not? In some ways this resembles how I felled back in 2005 when we started to think about the GX WebManager 9 (GXWM 9) architecture and stood in front of a huge empty whiteboard.

As the major version indicates GXWM 9 is not an entirely new product. GX WebManager  has been around for over 6 years and made GX the leading CMS vendor in The Netherlands.  However I like to think of GXWM  9, not just as the next major version, but as a next generation.

So why is it just called version 9? Well that was not my decision and in fact that doesn’t really matter. The fact is that this version is a major step forward because it provides entirely new and unique features unlike any previous version (or any other main stream CMS for that matter).  These features include a brand new persistence layer based on the Java™ Content Repository (JSR-170), a pluggable component framework with runtime deployment capabilities based on the OSGi technology is the dynamic module system for Java™ and new composite MVC framework transforming GX WebManager from a monolithic proprietary  system into an open architecture that acts as a platform for CMS functionality. I am therefore especially proud that we are now able to release the a public available Community Edition of the SDK so that you can find out for yourselves!

On this blog you can expect me to write about the architectural choices we made in GXWM 9, the specifications, technologies, the great stuff from the open source communities at Apache Software Foundation, Codehaus and Spring Framework we use and support, our experiences and of course the new cool stuff we are working on!

I hope you will enjoy my contributions and look forward to receiving feedback and suggestions.

Bram