Components and Elements

Abstract

In this chapter we are going to build upon our request—response loop knowledge from the previous chapter and peer into some of the less well-lit corners of components. You will see how subtle changes in the component graph during the request—response loop can have obscure or difficult-to-understand side effects and learn how to debug these situations. We will reveal what makes WODynamicElement an efficient counterpart to WOComponent. We will take a close look at how automatic and manual synchronization of values between parent and child components work, and show that stateless components offer an alternative to dynamic elements that combine efficiency with ease of creation. Finally, we will explore the useful, but little known, WOEvent functionality as an aid to optimization and debugging.

What we need to do is learn to work in the system, by which I mean that everybody, every team, every platform, every division, every component is there not for individual competitive profit or recognition, but for contribution to the system as a whole on a win-win basis.

—W. Edwards Deming

It’s easy to cry “bug” when the truth is that you’ve got a complex system and sometimes it takes a while to get all the components to co-exist peacefully.

—Doug Vargas