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

[Janko Mivšek]

S, Runar Jordahl piše:

> Come on… We all know Janko is biased, and the comparison reflects that.
> But it is not like he wants to take over the world and kill Seaside.
> Well… maybe he wants, but there is still no reason to get upset. :-)

I'm biased by definition and I don't hide that :) See disclaimer right
in the header of comparison.

But let me explain my rationale: I started this comparison to assess the
strengths and weaknesses of Aida comparing to other two. And I need to
know Seaside and Iliad for competitive reasons which is a strong
motivator for learning other frameworks. End result is also that I can
actually compare them very well. But from my own perspective of course.
Which I stated upfront 100 times already: This comparison is Aida centric!

At the end all community have something out of that comparison even if
it is biased. Better than nothing, I like to add :) And I invited you to
balance it.

> I have only tried Seaside, choosing that framework since it is the
> “default” one to use for Smalltalk web development. At least the
> comparison made me aware of Iliad, and had me rediscover Aida. But even
> if I now have more knowledge, I am more confused than ever.
> 
> We need some small reports, from various sources, comparing the
> strengths and weaknesses of the frameworks. Creating a collaborative
> to-do-list application might be a good reference case.

Agreed, someone from a distance should look at all three and study
matarials like this comparison and forthcoming examples. I expect
someone from academic world to step up ... ;)

About ToDo example, Hannes prepared nice requirements at
http://www.edupad.ch/tB6G15hqCx and I'm near done it in Aida. Expect in
a day or two the announcement. A live multiuser ToDo for you to look at
together with published code.

> From what I understand, all three frameworks generate HTML using roughly
> the same techniques. But there are differences in how you compose a page
> from multiple components. The spreadsheet mentions “composition” vs.
> “rendering”. Getting a short discussion about these concepts is probably
> more helpful than a lot of (smaller) features compared.

Good idea. Let we start about HTML generation in a separate thread.

> It seems like everyone agrees on the importance of JavaScript. So
> explaining how the various frameworks handle this and how they will
> tackle it in the future, is important. It seems like Aida and Seaside
> takes different routes here. How does that matter for me as a user?
> Again, a more detailed discussion than “yes” / ”no” on a feature list,
> would be welcome.

Discussing here the certain feature is probalby he best way to achive
better explanation of each feature or group of features. Let we start
with above one for now.

> It is also interesting to see how this thread discusses the future of
> Smalltalk web frameworks. As I understand this, we have Aida, Iliad and
> Seaside being the “server-centric” web frameworks. These frameworks
> generate the UI on the server, and use third-party JavaScript libraries
> to provide a richer UI experience at the client. Then we have
> Quicksilver and Jtalk which basically let you run your UI (Smalltalk)
> code in the client browser itself. These “client-centric” frameworks are
> experimental and not ready for production. As Janko mentions,
> integration between these two types of frameworks will be important.

Exactly. Jtalk is currently in full and very hot development, with a
goal to be included in Iliad soon. And in Aida too, I have great plans
with it. Not only on client-side: with Jtalk we can conect to wast
amount of node.js modules on server-side!

Best regards
Janko


> Kind regards
> Runar Jordahl
> blog.epigent.com <http://blog.epigent.com>


-- 
Janko Mivšek
Aida/Web
Smalltalk Web Application Server
http://www.aidaweb.si