[Seaside] Re: Comparison of Aida/Web, Seaside and Iliad web frameworks

[H. Hirzel]

Yes,

I think as Boris says, contribution should be easy.
The topic _is_ important. Seaside is great but not as great as it
could be**. For example I would love to have tables where people can
enter rows and terminate them with the 'Enter' key.

Maybe we could consider using etherpad for this comparison. Every
single keystroke gives a version and by hitting the 'save' button you
create a version. Rollback is possible anytime.

e.g.
http://typewith.me/

a service running Etherpad
http://www.etherpad.com/

Formatting is very simple but probably good enough. It may be beautified later.

Regards
Hannes


** It is the only Smalltalk IDE I know at the moment.

On 6/22/11, Boris Popov, DeepCove Labs <boris at deepcovelabs.com> wrote:
> I don't think Avi was talking about better XHR support or clean URLs or
> external file serving support etcetera (even though Seaside is perfectly
> capable of all 3). I'm pretty sure in the age of hashbang URIs all 3 of the
> frameworks listed are pretty much obsolete if all you're looking for is
> better structured callback support to drive client-side applications (which
> is why I'd really like to see JTalk evolve+succeed on the front-end, then we
> can tackle the backend support and it'll have very little to do with either
> framework in its current state). We all have to keep in mind that these
> frameworks don't generally evolve by someone deciding to spend their time on
> improving the framework for frameworks' sake. Instead, the improvements are
> secondary to folks trying to build real applications and needing solutions
> to design/implementation issues that come up in that process, so regardless
> of what's available in spreadsheets or issue trackers, folks will only work
> on things that they need and consider important.
>
> Look, I have nothing against comparisons per se and my earlier post was
> meant to lighten the mood a bit by taking tables to extremes to show how
> easy it is to tip the scales (but Stephane is, indeed, a feature and, in all
> seriousness, we really could use someone like him in the VisualWorks
> community IMHO, so, Stephane, don't take offence to being included, it was a
> compliment). If I were to take this further (and I'm not sure I would), I'd
> start by stripping the spreadsheet down to bare minimums and making it
> editable. Yes, it may result in some noise, but like Wikipedia, it'll
> eventually settle down as most of us are reasonable adults, or so I like to
> think anyway. The key is making it dead simple for people to contribute. In
> fact, I tried to go down that list yesterday to add some comments and
> corrections, but upon discovering that it was read-only, it was no longer
> 'simple enough'.
>
> Regards,
>
> -Boris
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: seaside-bounces at lists.squeakfoundation.org
> [mailto:seaside-bounces at lists.squeakfoundation.org] On Behalf Of Janko
> Mivšek
> Sent: Wednesday, June 22, 2011 8:13 AM
> To: Seaside - general discussion
> Cc: Aida/Web general discussion list; iliad at googlegroups.com
> Subject: [Seaside] Re: Comparison of Aida/Web,Seaside and Iliad web
> frameworks
>
> It is hard to expect from us others to merge into if even its author admits
> that Seaside is now obsolete. That is, (from Avi words [1]) Seaside was
> advanced at the time it was designed, but now it lags behind (as Ruby on
> Rails and others too), specially because of JavaScript/Ajax advances. It is
> therefore better for Seaside to rather listen to its author and do
> something. Or merge already done ideas from us others instead.
>
> Common guys, Ajax is 5 years old, let the Seaside finally come with Ajax
> support at least close to that in Iliad and Aida! Then study carefully what
> Nicolas Petton and his group is working on Iliad and Jtalk. We are doing so
> and incorporating but also extending his ideas in Aida. And on the other way
> too, Nico is listening what we are doing. Why not you too?
>
> The most popular Smalltalk web framework sleeping on the successes in past
> is namely bad for all Smalltalk, that's why I'd like to open the debate
> about the web support in Smalltalk in general.
>
> On the web we have an opportunity, are we loosing it?
>
> That's why I'm pushing this comparison and that's why I'd have and ESUG talk
> titled "On the web frontiers with Smalltalk". And a panel is planned too.
>
> So, Seasiders, come to the web frontiers again by looking what we others are
> doing, learn and adopt. And contribute some own innovative ideas to the
> Smalltalk on the web again!
>
> Best regards
> Janko
>
> [1]
> http://www.stic.st/events/smalltalk-solutions-2011-abstracts/smalltalk-and-big-data/
>
> S, Boris Popov, DeepCove Labs piše:
>> Nick,
>>
>>
>>
>> You nailed it. We all know that Smalltalk community is small and,
>> quite possibly, getting smaller, whether we like it or not. The
>> exposure that Avi had given to Seaside resulted in a good mass of
>> developers coming on board and it becoming a de facto web framework
>> for developing dynamic and powerful applications in Smalltalk. Given
>> the state of things today, I would honestly much rather see competing
>> frameworks converge on a single path and their developers contribute
>> to improving Seaside in hopes of it continuing to sustain or gain
>> traction, similar to how RoR had pretty much taken over in Rubyland.
>>
>>
>>
>> -Boris
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:*seaside-bounces at lists.squeakfoundation.org
>> [mailto:seaside-bounces at lists.squeakfoundation.org] *On Behalf Of
>> *Nick Ager
>> *Sent:* Tuesday, June 21, 2011 5:59 PM
>> *To:* Seaside - general discussion
>> *Subject:* Re: [Seaside] Comparison of Aida/Web, Seaside and Iliad web
>> frameworks
>>
>>
>>
>> Hi Janko,
>>
>>
>>
>> What are you trying to achieve? Is the idea that we come up with some
>> feature comparison, add up the ticks in the supported column and
>> declare a winner?
>>
>>
>>
>> I joined the Smalltalk community because of Seaside or rather because
>> of Avi Bryant's, Lukas's and others magical demonstrations that
>> Seaside offered a compellingly more productive way of developing web
>> applications. Some of the reason I continue to choose Seaside over
>> other
>> frameworks:
>>
>> * Component based
>>
>> * State management
>>
>> * DSL for Html generation
>>
>> * Neat integration with Scriptaculous and now JQuery for AJAX
>>
>> * #call, #answer semantics
>>
>> * active, friendly and technically deep development community.
>>
>>
>>
>> The question we should be asking ourselves is what compelling features
>> can we develop which will attract a set of new developers to
>> Smalltalk, otherwise it feels like we're bald men fighting over a comb.
>>
>>
>>
>> Nick
>>
>>
>>
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>
> --
> Janko Mivšek
> Aida/Web
> Smalltalk Web Application Server
> http://www.aidaweb.si
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