Hopbot log for 2008-04-03 - Helma IRC channel: #helma on irc.freenode.net

2008-04-03:

[15:58] <zumbrunn> http://astithas.blogspot.com/2008/04/javascript-on-server-with-helma.html
[16:12] <jkridne1> have you looked at Jaxer?
[16:13] <zumbrunn> "looked" at it, yes
[16:14] <zumbrunn> but I haven't tried to actually build something useful with it
[16:14] <zumbrunn> have you?
[16:14] <jkridne1> it would be interesting to use "runat" in skins.
[16:14] <jkridne1> I have not.
[16:14] <jkridne1> just read about it a tiny bit.
[16:14] <jkridne1> I just daydreamed a bit about how to combine Helma and Jaxer.
[16:15] <jkridne1> What I care about is ease of development to move client-side developers onto the server-side.
[16:15] <zumbrunn> yes, especially runat="both" certainly *sounds* interesting
[16:15] <jkridne1> that was part of my appeal to Helma, because it uses the same programming language.
[16:15] <zumbrunn> not sure how interesting it really is for real world apps
[16:15] <jkridne1> but, I think Jaxer is missing some features that I'd need out of Helma.
[16:16] <jkridne1> I don't see that they have sessions or the equivalent of skins.
[16:16] <jkridne1> they do have a database model.
[16:16] <jkridne1> and I think they will embrace Gears in the future.
[16:16] <zumbrunn> yes, it's very page oriented
[16:16] <jkridne1> I'd rather use the Gears model than another database model.
[16:16] <zumbrunn> where helma is "app" oriented
[16:17] <zumbrunn> or orientated ;-)
[16:17] <jkridne1> right.
[16:17] <jkridne1> not quite sure how the two models would merge...
[16:18] <jkridne1> but, the page-oriented model is a nice baby-step for those who create static web pages today.
[16:18] <zumbrunn> the key advantage of jaxer is that you have the true DOM environment on the server-side
[16:19] <zumbrunn> I'm not sure how html-unit would currently compare to that
[16:19] <jkridne1> that is handy and good for compatibility.
[16:19] <zumbrunn> it might actually be possible to quite a lot in that regard with html-unit in the future
[16:19] <jkridne1> I think it is rather ugly though.
[16:20] <jkridne1> it would be nice to be able to use E4X syntax instead, but that isn't there on the client-side yet.
[16:20] <zumbrunn> still, currently I'm sticking to E4X
[16:20] <zumbrunn> right, just wanted to say that
[16:20] <jkridne1> DOM is ugly.
[16:21] <zumbrunn> but on the server-side E4X is a nice alternative
[16:22] <zumbrunn> bringing the messy DOM to the server-side would in a sense be the worst thing that could happen to "Javascript as a language"
[16:23] <zumbrunn> because people that hate Javascript, usually really just hate the DOM API, but not the ECMAScript language
[16:23] <jkridne1> exactly.
[16:23] <zumbrunn> they are just not aware of the difference
[16:23] <jkridne1> still, I think it is fine as long as you have clean alternatives.
[16:24] <zumbrunn> sure
[16:24] <jkridne1> yes, it will continue to taint JavaScript, but I'm happy as long as I'm aware of a "great" solution, even if not everyone knows about it.
[16:25] <zumbrunn> right, nothing wrong with being more productive than everybody else
[16:25] <jkridne1> so, if someone was to combine Jaxer and Helma, what might it look like?
[16:26] <jkridne1> could you post-process with Jaxer?
[16:26] <zumbrunn> probably
[16:26] <jkridne1> I'd just need Helma around to try to give more MVC abstraction, sessions, etc.
[16:27] <jkridne1> it would allow for "MVC by degrees".
[16:27] <zumbrunn> since it's an apache module there would probably be a way to bend it that way
[16:27] <zumbrunn> what exactly would you use from Jaxer as the added value though?
[16:28] <jkridne1> for folks used to just serving static pages with apache could start with single pages with dynamic data, then start to create templates, etc.
[16:28] <zumbrunn> hmm
[16:28] <jkridne1> it is more about the development model.
[16:28] <zumbrunn> like .hsp files in Helma
[16:29] <jkridne1> hmmm... maybe I don't know about that feature.
[16:29] <jkridne1> what are .hsp files?
[16:29] <zumbrunn> it's deprecated
[16:29] <zumbrunn> and "secret" ;-)
[16:29] <jkridne1> btw, one of the things I do in my development is to try to keep as much as possible as .js...
[16:30] <zumbrunn> because it's not the "helma way"
[16:30] <jkridne1> I don't use .hac files.
[16:30] <jkridne1> oh?
[16:30] <zumbrunn> yes, general wistom in the helma community for the past few years has been to go in that direction
[16:31] <zumbrunn> that's why Hannes for example wrote gobi that way
[16:31] <zumbrunn> no hac files there, just js files
[16:31] <jkridne1> yeah, I'm not fond of template magic.
[16:31] <zumbrunn> personally, I think filename conventions can be nice
[16:31] <jkridne1> I like having an API.
[16:32] <jkridne1> filename conventions are fine, but I don't think they should be the extension.
[16:32] <zumbrunn> "template magic"?
[16:33] <jkridne1> stuff that isn't automatically documented with a header file and Doxygen.
[16:33] <jkridne1> .hac files automatically create functions out of your sequence of commands....
[16:33] <jkridne1> you have to know the framework to have a clue what is going on.
[16:33] <zumbrunn> right
[16:33] <jkridne1> when you have function calls, you know exactly where to go look... the definition of that function.
[16:34] <zumbrunn> yes, of course
[16:34] <jkridne1> when you have files that are "wrapped", then you don't know where to look to find who is doing the wrapping.
[16:37] <zumbrunn> .hsp files are kind of like skins that can be directly invoked via URLs, like actions
[16:40] <zumbrunn> the helma community considers it bad practice to build apps that way, so the feature is deprecated
[16:42] <jkridne1> yeah, it isn't MVC, but I think it would be nice to have that as a development model for those migrating from static pages.
[16:42] <jkridne1> I think you need to baby-step developers.
[16:43] <zumbrunn> I'm not disagreeing
[16:46] * jkridne1 is off to lunch.
[16:46] <zumbrunn> maybe we should document it, provide a tutorial/example for it, but still warn every step of the way about the fact that we insist it's a deprecated way of building web apps ;-)

 

 

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