Are you using the Seaside Dolphin port?

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Are you using the Seaside Dolphin port?

Griff-2
If you are, what do you think?

I plan to attend the OSCON 2005 talk on Seaside, and I am totally new
to
Smalltalk.

http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/os2006/view/e_sess/8942


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Re: Are you using the Seaside Dolphin port?

Esteban A. Maringolo
Hi Griff,

Griff escribió:

 > Subject: Are you using the Seaside Dolphin port?
> If you are, what do you think?

I'm porting it, and using the examples inside to test it.
The "feeling" is that runs faster than Squeak's and VW's
implementations.

Seaside is great to build complex web UI with non-linear page/use
flow thanks to the use of process continuations for this purpose.

It provides an "intuitive" way of developing web applications,
following the same logic behind developing normal desktop apps, you
can stop a process, do the debugging, resume, and the process will
continue from that point.

However, I don't like some points like:
- Too many round trips per "page" request
- Static and dynamic content served by Seaside (this can be solved
using an hybrid solution with two servers, one for static content,
and other for dynamic content).
- "déjà vu" effect, when resuming suspended continuations you may
end debugging an already fixed bug, or editing an obsolete method
edition.
- Continuations are powerful, but the system get plenty of suspended
processes during a normal development session. You have to force
manual cleanups when your system is in unstable stage, once stable
it keeps steady.
- Not RESTful URI's. However, this can be achieved without too much
effort.
- Not serializable sessions, you can't distribute a single session
through several servers (you may apply another load balancing
strategy however)

Personally I would like Seaside to use fewer continuations (and
according to A. Bryant the tendency is that it will do so, see #1),

Summarizing, I'll recommend you give Seaside a try, it's orthogonal
to many other stuff around, I has a growing user base coming from
non-smalltalk background (which is propagating Smalltalk as a highly
productive/innovative technology), and already is a "production"
software (#2).

If you like to try Seaside for Dolphin, you have a version on
<http://www.seaside.st/Download/Dolphin>, I'm releasing an adapted
version, find more news at <http://dolphinseaside.blogspot.com/>.

> I plan to attend the OSCON 2005 talk on Seaside, and I am totally new
> to
> Smalltalk.

It's a one way trip.
You'll enjoy learning Smalltalk and Seaside.

Best regards,

Esteban.


Refs:
#1: Ongoing Continuations <http://smallthought.com/avi/?p=14>
#2: Dabble DB <http://www.dabbledb.com>