IBM WebSphere Commerce Amplify Notes

Having recently attended the 2016 Amplify conference for Commerce; thought I would post a couple notes of interest from conversations and/or sessions.

• WebSphere Commerce V8
• Headless Commerce
• Commerce On the Cloud

IBM Commerce Conference (Amplify) 2016

Here at the IBM WebSphere Commerce conference this year.  Seems the main theme of announcements this year are around the new marketing on the cloud initiatives.
Couple notes:

• The tooling for the new marketing and merchandising products and the new WebSphere Commerce Management Center have had a face lift in an attempt to provide a similar experience across the tools.  They are still not fully integrated, which would provide the business a single tool for completing their tasks.  At least they are attempting to reduce the learning curve.
• The somewhat recently released WebSphere Commerce v8.

more to come...

WC Attribute Dictionary Model vs Classic Attribute Model

I was recently asked which direction to move into using.   So I thought I would put out some thoughts on the subject.

The classic attribute model requires the attributes be defined for every catalog entry.  A better approach is to define a common set of attributes that can be reused by multiple products, the attribute dictionary.  The WC Attribute Dictionary provides for

• Centralized management of the attributes providing controlled consistency in the attribute names and values across the catalog entries.
• Reduced data management by eliminating duplicate data for attributes.
• In later FEP’s (5-8) there is additional functionality added to the attributes such as facetable attributes and merchandising attributes.  These allow for enhanced search result management, additional functionality in marketing activity catalog entry recommendations, and enhanced category browse through use of facets.

 So my recommendation is to move toward utilizing the WC Attribute Dictionary. 

Use Intern for JavaScript unit testing

With so much of JavaScript in use on and off the web and a growing library where I work, there is a need for good unit testing.  I have spent time looking at many of the different tools, though they have not been quite adequate for all of our needs.  I have recently been pointed towards Intern, a new project by SitePen Labs.

Javascript libraries

There are many discussions (some quite heated) on what JavaScript library/framework is better.  I believe it all depends on your own abilities, needs, and intentions.  There are many developers working with all the popular libraries and frameworks.  Can all front-end developers be wrong?  In contrast I have seen many developers who have opted to not use a library and decide to do it all on their own.  This often strikes me as odd in some of these situations, since I usually don't care to reinvent if there is not a valid reason.  There are some elements of a framework I feel necessary when coding JavaScript for a large system in a fast paced work environment.  I am going to touch on a couple of these.

WebSphere Commerce Data Services Layer

In my last post, I introduced concepts and layers around the BOD framework.  Now I plan to dig a little more into the framework and discuss an important layer within the framework, DSL.

The WebSphere Commerce BOD framework often refers to the data services layer (DSL).  For those familiar with the NVP command programming model, the DSL replaces the EJBs and Access Beans.  It provides the abstract layer for data access decoupled from the physical database schema.  I am going to try to pull some of the information together for a decent overview of DSL.

Here is a high level view from the info center of where in the architecture the DSL fits in.

BOD, What is it? Should I use it?

WebSphere Commerce BOD, this architecture in WCS is not as straight forward to follow at first, unlike the NVP Command framework.  As WebSphere Commerce is transitioning to SOA, there is a need to ensure decoupling of the various components and allow re-use of the WebSphere Commerce business services. The result is a change to the frameworks driving development within WCS.  This is where the BOD framework comes in.

So what is BOD?