What are the costs and benefits of using SmartFrog?
There is a cost to using SmartFrog. The largest element of cost is that of initially learning the intricacies of the framework and its methodology since the model of configuration is probably unfamiliar. Once familiarised, though, the cost of creating new SmartFrog components is in direct proportion to the complexity of the task with little or no overhead imposed by the use of the framework. Indeed, the task is often actually simplified, as one of the key aspects of the component model is that the programmer’s interface to configuration data is consistent regardless of how the data is to be obtained – from a static text file through to being dynamically discovered at runtime. The SmartFrog framework hides the precise mechanism being used, and allows new mechanisms to be easily incorporated. The largest benefit comes once components have been designed and implemented. The flexibility and ease of using SmartFrog components is greatly enhanced over the more traditional model of using conf
