Magma and Magma on Pharo questions

[Keith Hodges]

Chris Muller wrote:
>> To make it work with Seaside is a problem that I have not yet sorted out.  seasideHelper requires installing the package
>>     
>
> Hi Ramiro, I continue to be confused by statements like this..
>
> I am still unclear about what Magma needs to "work" with Seaside.  Our
> company is using Magma with Seaside just fine, no special
>   
That's a shame, a lot of work went into them, and you guys would be far
better at making sure it all works than I am.
> helper-packages or anything.
>   
But to do that (for a magma session per user session) you will have had
to make your own custom session class. Now if you use pier, gjallar,
comet, shore components or glorp then all of these guys supply a session
class for you and everyone wants their piece of the session class, it
ends up as a big pain.

The Seaside28Jetsam-helpers add the ability to attach additional
services to whatever session you are given.

The Magma helper adds several commit strategies, manual solo, automatic
solo, manual, automatic commits. There is also a scheme where the magma
session is acquired after the first page has been displayed and sent to
the browser. i.e. If your first page is the login screen, then magma has
until the user hits the login button to provide the database session.
> Do other persistence frameworks like Glorp or Goods have something
> that Magma is lacking to "work" and integrate better with Seaside?
>   
Yes, everyone supplies a subclass of WASession, so that the individual
user gets a glorp session, and that's the problem, everyone does, so it
isn't possible to just add Magma without major customisation work.
> I am wondering whether the SeasideHelper package is confusing people
> more than helping.
Just because the helpers didn't load due to one missing empty dummy method.
>   Just to be clear, it is just one persons
> interpretation of a Seaside/Magma application framework.  There are
> limitless other ways to do it, I recommend approaching the problem
> from a fresh "nothing" perspective
There is also a seaside based magma control panel which tells you how
many sessions are open, a few stats and the ability to explore what's there.

There are also a couple of ReadStrategy choices which provide an easier
means to write and debug ReadStrategies and detailed logging and timings.
>  (e.g., just Magma and Seaside, no
> helper packages)..
>   
So with all due respect I think your advice is misguided there is a lot
of cool stuff in there learnt from using Magma with the biggest seaside
use case so far - Gjallar.

I am very sad to find yet another person in the squeak community who
thinks that the default position is that it is better to avoid using or
supporting other peoples contributions. It is due to this attitude that
I have concluded that I have been wasting my time and I am withdrawing
from making any further contributions to squeak and or pharo.

So as of now Magma-seasideHelper is unsupported - take it or leave it.

Keith