Re: [Vala] Blitzen: A Vala Application Server

[Samuel CUELLA <samuel cuella supinfo com>]

Hi,

> Where's the source repository? I can't find any svn/git/..
For the moment, the repository is not accessible from the internet. I'll import
it into the sourceforge subversion service when I have time. That means I'll do
it, but I can't tell you when. If you want to work on the source code or apply
patches, please do it against the latest release tarball. Just send your patches
at bugs blitzen org, or use sf tracker, as written on the 'Contributing' page of
the website.
 
> I tried to write a simple webapp but I faced the following issues:
>
>  * There's no sne-server.h installed , so i had to copy them manually with 
Fixed
>  * There's no pkgconfig file that setups gcc flags correctly. I had to split
>    the build in two steps (valac+gcc)
Fixed
Thank you for reporting bugs ! These two of them have been fixed in the latest
release (blitzen-0.0.8-r1) available on sourceforge. You just made me realize
that I had a manually created 'stk.pc' on my system that was not part of the
dist and not part of the project at all. Don't hesitate to point out any of
these 'features'.
>  * The webapp is loaded correctly, but segfaults when running. You may find
>    the sourcecode here:
>       http://lolcathost.org/b/stk.tar.gz
As written in my first answer, this is "working on my system"(tm). I don't know
how this got wrong, but I suspect the deployment process. Try to use the
Makefile linked in my previous post, and look at the documentation deployment
hints at http://blitzen.sourceforge.net/manual/ch03s03.html.
If it still don't work, please let me know. I really want to fix it if necessary.

> It would be nice to have some help or flags handled by blitzen binary, to
> specify different configuration file, show version or so.
We(I in fact) are accepting patches ;)

> Vlad and me are planing to add support for Stk in GtkON
Somebody just dragged my attention to your project some days ago. I'm really
missing your point there. What's the purpose of GtkON ? I mean, it's generating
Vala code out of an XML file with mixed UI definition and code. Don't take it
personal, but I think it's a very, very bad idea, at least for real
applications. It might be OK for rapid prototyping. But in my opinion, that's
not the big problem. The big problem is why using this ? libglade have been
around for years, GtkBuilder is now integrated directly in gtk and glade is able
to generate XML for it. Why using something like GtkON when you can use glade to
design your interface and something /built into/ Gtk to load it ? GtkBuilder is
available for any language that has a gtk binding, including Vala, but not
restricted to it. For me, that's making GtkON pretty useless.

The only feature that it have over GtkBuilder is to generate 'native' code. And
of course more concise XML. I perfectly agree that GtkBuilder XML notation can
be reduced. For this, just talking with the Gtk guys or writing your own XML
parser would have been better. Parsing XML and creating GObject on the flow is
really easy. Even setting properties is straightforward.

If you don't want to have XML files around when distributing your application,
you can perfectly embed the interface data into a string and have this string
parsed by GtkBuilder. There is a function for that. If you really want to
generate static code, it's very easy to take a GtkBuilder file and to generate
the corresponding code. You could also do the same with your own XML parse: It's
just a matter of outputting call code instead of executing it.

Really, I don't see the point of that project. However, please don't take it
personal or whatever. I know you've invested time on it and I we all know it
feels when people don't like your work. This is only my opinion. If the project
is useful for you and fit your needs, it's fine for everyone.

> , so you can drop StkBuilder,
> XML files and reduce even more lines of code in the applications.
I'm not going to drop StkBuilder in favor of GtkOn. Not because I don't like it,
which is true, but only because that's not what I'm trying to implement there.
StkBuilder is not intended to generate code. Ever. StkBuilder allows people to
separate UI definition from 'business' code. It also allow to modify UI without
recompiling. Moreover, Blitzen applications are long-lasting. StkBuilder doesn't
read the XML file and create views on-the-fly each time a view is created. It
only loads the definition once and keeps it in an intermediate representation
that is then use by the instantiation engine to build up the view. I've benched
statical code vs StkBuilder and the "overhead" is not noticeable. In fact,
StkBuilder is faster than manual view setup. Of course, this does not include
the first file reading, but only creating a view from the intermediate
representation stored:
I've got "Elapsed time : 0.000369" for build up using StkBuilder that create
instances using g_object_new and set properties using g_object_set_properties,
and "Elapsed time : 0.000461" for the direct view setup using the Stk API
functions, like stk_text_entry_new() and alike.
Therefore, there is no speed gains there.

If you want to look at the code I've used, I can put it somewhere for your
scrutiny. Just ask.

However, If you still want to adapt GtkON to Stk and you think that might be
useful for you or other people, please do so. I've nothing personal against it,
and I'll try to notify you on API evolution/breaks.

Cheers,
Samuel


> Good work! will follow it!
>
> Thanks
>
> On Thu, 11 Nov 2010 19:59:51 +0100
> Samuel CUELLA <samuel cuella    > wrote:
>
> >   Hi Everyone,
> >
> > I'm currently writing an application server in C/GObject with a Vala 
> > binding.
> > It's component-oriented and loosely modeled on GTK+
> >
> > It's currently still in alpha version (the last version is 0.0.8) but 
> > already works and can run basic websites.
> > It already have the complete standard HTML widgets implemented, as well 
> > as an XML pages construction mechanism (inspired on GtkBuilder).
> >
> > The project homepage is http://www.blitzen.org/ (hosted on sourceforge) 
> > and you can find some sample code at 
> > http://blitzen.sourceforge.net/new/index.php?pages/sample-code
> >
> > Would you consider adding it in the "Projects Developed in Vala" list on 
> > the documentation page ? The core is not really developed in Vala 
> > itself, but as web applications can be written in Vala, I think it can 
> > fit in the list.
> >
> > Regards,
> > Samuel
> > _______________________________________________
> > vala-list mailing list
> > vala-list    
> > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/vala-list