[squeak-dev] SqueakMap server

Göran Krampe goran at krampe.se
Tue Apr 15 08:13:51 UTC 2014


Hi!

On 04/15/2014 09:47 AM, Frank Shearar wrote:
> On 15 April 2014 08:34, Göran Krampe <goran at krampe.se> wrote:
>> Frank: There is "no" client-server protocol to speak of. The client just
>> does a HTTP GET to check the transaction counter of the domain model at the
>> SqueakMap server - if its higher than the local counter - we do another GET
>> to fetch a gzipped ImageSegment of the domain model.
>
> HTTP GET _is_ a client/server API. SM's protocol isn't documented, and
> I didn't have the time to figure out the http framework, which you
> mention below so I'll just continue there...

Do note I wrote "no" using quotes, of course its a protocol - but its 
extremely simple. And I could have helped explain it and even document 
it but I don't recall anyone emailing me and asking about it :)

> I guess maybe I should have been more precise in what I was
> complaining about. I don't know much about SM's domain model, and I
> don't care: that's an implementation detail of the service. What I
> care about is the service's API. So if it's possible to take SM's
> existing domain model, and SM's existing data, and just replace the
> HttpView stuff with some new API (that's actually documented!), then
> great! Less work for Chris Cunnington to do!

Yes, that would be very possible IMHO. I actually thought that was what 
Chris Cunnington was doing (replacing the web UI but keeping the domain 
model).

Also, "implementation detail" is... well, no, its a fair bit more than 
that I would say. Most web services just offer an API and keep the 
domain model on the server. SM doesn't - it offers a very simple API to 
actually download the whole model and then perform all readonly work on 
the client.

And right, documentation is probably scarce, sorry about that, but you 
don't have to be snotty about it. And I think many of the classes have 
class comments and the code is probably fairly well commented too 
(granted it was a long time ago so I don't really remember).

> The main point to my reply was that I'd like to see Chris Cunnington
> supported in his experiments around SM, and I'd like to see Chris
> Muller sleeping easily at night knowing that our core infrastructure
> isn't going to be ripped apart during said experiments.

Personally I applaud all efforts in any and all directions :)

regards, Göran

PS. Just for fun, given you have the domain model in *your* image the 
code snippet in this pdf is stuff you can easily do: 
http://swiki.krampe.se/gohu/uploads/11/squeakmap.pdf


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