Hopbot log for 2008-04-20 - Helma IRC channel: #helma on irc.freenode.net

2008-04-20:

[3:13] <jkridner> a couple of web searches seem to return stale info. what is the quickest way to start helma as an /etc/init.d style daemon?
[3:14] <twentyafterfour> isn't there a script included with it? .. all you need is a little init script to fire it up, I often modify an existing file in init.d when adding new daemons
[3:14] <jkridner> there is a start.sh, but that doesn't seem ready for /etc/init.d
[3:16] <jkridner> I'm just trying to get reliable execution on startup with a clean install.
[3:17] <jkridner> I've got an /etc/conf.d/local.start
[3:17] <jkridner> may just put it there.
[3:17] <twentyafterfour> yeah that's a fine way to do it too.. just call "start.sh &"
[3:18] <twentyafterfour> wait
[3:18] <jkridner> k. I'll think deeper later.
[3:18] <twentyafterfour> there
[3:18] <twentyafterfour> in the scripts folder of helma
[3:18] <twentyafterfour> there is an init script in there
[3:19] <jkridner> ah, just called 'helma'?
[3:19] <twentyafterfour> yep the readme file explains a little I think
[3:20] <jkridner> there you go. this seems to be what I was looking for. thanks!
[3:20] <twentyafterfour> not much explanation but still it should be fairly easy to set up.. good luck
[3:20] <twentyafterfour> you're welcome
[12:24] <twentyafterfour> I haz a voice! ;o
[12:25] <zumbrunn> not that it would make a difference or anything
[12:25] <zumbrunn> here you have your voice even if you a have not been granted one :-)
[12:25] <twentyafterfour> except that I got to make that open-mouth smiley ^
[12:26] <zumbrunn> which made it all worth while :-)
[12:27] <twentyafterfour> I'm actually surprised someone was here to respond ... this channel isn't exactly the busiest. Since you did respond, I'll introduce myself.. My name is Mukunda and I'm a helma n00b. Quite impressed with it really
[12:28] <twentyafterfour> I'm somehow surprised I didn't discover this framework sooner. It's been around for a few years, it seems...
[12:29] <twentyafterfour> I also use a random number of periods, at random intervals, in my writing.
[12:37] * zumbrunn is back with a fresh cup of coffee
[12:37] <twentyafterfour> mhmmm coffee
[12:37] <zumbrunn> welcome to Helma twentyafterfour!
[12:37] <twentyafterfour> I'll be having one of those...once the coffee shop opens.
[12:37] <twentyafterfour> thanks sumbrunn
[12:38] <twentyafterfour> err zumbrunn ...
[12:38] <zumbrunn> yeah, helma probably soon goes back ten years
[12:38] <zumbrunn> counting the time it was developed inside the ORF, before it got open sourced in 2001
[12:39] <twentyafterfour> impressive. It seems under-appreciated and surprisingly light for something with that many years to grow bloat
[12:40] <zumbrunn> yes, I guess to a large degree that's due to being able to reuse the "bloat" that's available in the form of Java libraries :-)
[12:41] <twentyafterfour> in those years I have gone from PHP n00b to java servlets (thanks to college training in java and a little bit of masochism ) then back to php, now finally learned to love javascript and tolerate java
[12:42] <zumbrunn> then helma is indeed a nice habitat for you
[12:42] <twentyafterfour> hey, at least helma uses templates as they should be, without re-inventing logical programming language in some other "easy" syntax
[12:44] <zumbrunn> I think the helma project aims even to further reduce bloat, rather than accumulating it
[12:44] <zumbrunn> coming up with new ways to develop web apps without the need to accumulate bloat
[12:45] <zumbrunn> and with spring cleaning the core, like Helma NG shows
[12:45] <zumbrunn> http://dev.helma.org/wiki/Helma+NG/
[12:46] <twentyafterfour> nice. I love almost everything about it. I hacked together my own php framework over the years, and it's similar in a lot of ways to helma, however, I really like dynamic programming and php isn't as dynamic as I would like. I have been trying to decide whether I will start using helma or just borrow some ideas for my own framework (which is surprisingly similar, actually) .... instead of...
[12:46] <twentyafterfour> ...choosing one I think I will do both.
[12:48] <zumbrunn> "doing both" meaning building your framework based on helma?
[12:48] <twentyafterfour> one question: is there a reason why all the prototype directories are organized in a single top-level directory? I keep thinking it would be cleaner if I could nest them (maybe not cleaner, but it might make it easier to visualize the layout)
[12:49] <twentyafterfour> well I mean adding some of my own framework to helma and maybe borrow some ideas for the sites that won't be rewritten any time soon ;)
[12:49] <zumbrunn> you mean nest them according to the way they inherit from each other?
[12:49] <zumbrunn> the advantage now is that the directory structure inside a prototype is free
[12:50] <twentyafterfour> I also thought of using the php interpreter from the caucho.com guys to run both languages side by side. If only someone could implement php in javascript then I would just nest it for the ultimate in layers of abstraction.
[12:50] <zumbrunn> you can structure the files the way you want according to your own conventions
[12:51] <twentyafterfour> yeah I meant nesting based on inheritance ... I could see reasons to avoid it but at first I was disappointed that it didn't have a traditional directory structure. I'm getting over it though ;)
[12:51] <zumbrunn> if you have lots of files inside a prototype directory, it's nice to be able to structure them
[12:52] <zumbrunn> of course, we could do both, based on some naming conventions
[12:52] <twentyafterfour> did you know some crazy lunatic wrote a ruby interpreter in javascript? And I've just read that another lunatic ported rails to run on rhino
[12:53] <zumbrunn> for example, any directories with capitalized names could be treated as prototypes
[12:53] <zumbrunn> yeah, I know about the ruby interpreter written in JS
[12:53] <zumbrunn> doesn't make much sense on the server-side, I guess
[12:53] <twentyafterfour> I want to write a web-app in python that will be interpreted by a javascript program which is running in rhino on an os/2 VM inside my linux workstation
[12:54] <zumbrunn> (since we could use jruby for that)
[12:55] <twentyafterfour> and people used to complain about java being way to slow... strangely it seems that rhino may be able to compete with php's performance (if not beating it outright)
[12:55] <zumbrunn> and jython, if you want python
[12:56] <zumbrunn> why? did you do some performance testing?
[12:56] <twentyafterfour> not really myself but I have been looking at the testing done by a lot of other people and it looks pretty good
[12:57] <zumbrunn> I'm certainly very please with the real world performance I get from my helma apps
[12:59] <twentyafterfour> I rarely have problems with web-app performance due to the scripting language, I guess databases and hard disks are the bottleneck ... the caucho implementation of php on the JVM claims to be 4x faster than php, and the rhino codebase really must be better than their code is ;)
[13:17] <twentyafterfour> hey I had an idea for a neat little helma-related project that I should mention here: firebug for helma... Is it possible to replace the swing-based debugger in helma with a remotely-attached debugger communicating with helma via a socket?
[13:27] <zumbrunn> twentyafterfour, I'm not sure how difficult that would be
[13:28] <zumbrunn> it has come up when Hannes first added the rhino debugger support a few years ago
[13:28] <zumbrunn> but I don't know if anybody ever really looked into this
[13:28] <twentyafterfour> hmmm ... just seems like a whiz-bang kinda flashy impressive feature that would land on the digg homepage ;)
[13:29] <twentyafterfour> and useful too
[13:29] <zumbrunn> anyway, extending firebug to make debugging helma apps easier is something I'm very interested in
[13:30] <zumbrunn> we talked about adding debug info to the http headers, which then could be used by firebug on the client -side
[13:31] <zumbrunn> plus, integrating the helma shell into firebug would be pretty straight forward
[13:31] <twentyafterfour> well I'm surely interested in helping. I am good with mozilla/xul coding
[13:42] <zumbrunn> ok, your interest is noted
[13:42] <zumbrunn> can you drop me an email to chris@zumbrunn.com, so I have a way to get in touch with you?
[13:43] <twentyafterfour> yep, and I guess I should join the mailing list too
[13:43] <zumbrunn> sure :-)
[13:46] <twentyafterfour> sent...
[13:46] <zumbrunn> got it, thanks!
[18:07] <zumbrunn> welcome to helma in spanish:
[18:07] <zumbrunn> http://digitta.com/2008/04/javascript-en-el-servidor-con-helma.html

 

 

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