I recently took a quick look at an unreleased web development framework called Cappuccino, which makes use of the newly developed Objective-J language used to deploy the Keynote-like web application 280Slides. Seems there is another very powerful Cocoa-like framework already available, and one that Apple has shown great interest in.

SproutCore adds a MVC (model-view-controller) structure to Javascript. Of course, Cocoa devs will be happy to find the same features noted in Cappuccino, such as undo/redo, bindings, document management, client-side storage with HTML5, and more.

Roughly Drafted Magazine has a very interesting article detailing the implications from this powerful framework. The important ideas to take away from this article lie along the lines that this framework is basically Cocoa for web apps. Apple has already been using SproutCore for over a year in the .Mac Web Gallery, and now has fully deployed SproutCore in the rebranded and revamped .Mac service, MobileMe, in addition to hiring the developer of SproutCore himself. Putting all this effort into the framework and testing it by developing interactive and very Mac-like web applications gives the user the idea that web applications don’t have to suck. So, a new market is emerging.

This is an amazing article with lots of grounded arguments for Apple’s moves, and the industry’s attitude in general. While you’re checking out Roughly Drafted Magazine, be sure to read other articles which are just as amazing!

Roughly Drafted Magazine

SpoutCore Javascript Framework

280Slides Online Presentation Software