Comparison of Aida/Web, Seaside and Iliad web frameworks

> 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:*[hidden email]
> [mailto:[hidden email]] *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
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> seaside mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/seaside

> 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: [hidden email]
> [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Janko
> Mivšek
> Sent: Wednesday, June 22, 2011 8:13 AM
> To: Seaside - general discussion
> Cc: Aida/Web general discussion list; [hidden email]
> 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:*[hidden email]
>> [mailto:[hidden email]] *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
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> seaside mailing list
>> [hidden email]
>> http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/seaside
>
> --
> Janko Mivšek
> Aida/Web
> Smalltalk Web Application Server
> http://www.aidaweb.si
> _______________________________________________
> seaside mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/seaside
>

> Hey everyone,
>
> On 22 Jun 2011, at 06:29, Michael Haupt wrote:
>
>> Consider this a scientific project. An emotion-free attitude helps. :-)
>
> A yes/no feature-wise comparison is probably too simple for comparing
> sophisticated web frameworks.
>
> Skimming through the feature list, I have the same reactions that others
> have because some features are just not well defined and others are
> immediately clear to be filled-out wrong for Seaside. Ramon named some of
> these.
> And just to be clear: it's not an emotional reaction. I like the initiative
> because I would like to know more about Iliad and Aida too.

> For building Yesplan, Seaside is a great framework because it offers a good
> level of abstraction (including over techniques like ajax - via jQuery)
> while at the same time it offers all the flexibility to implement complex
> (e.g. non-standard) ways of interacting with the web application. I can
> imagine that having more techniques and functionality "under the hood" (like
> standard widgets or the 'tab enter' that was mentioned) seems like a
> productivity improvement, but in my experience, such "standard components"
> hardly ever apply in more complex situations. Instead, if you have a
> flexible environment that offers just that right level of abstraction, you
> can build really complex applications.

> On 22 Jun 2011, at 06:29, Michael Haupt wrote:
>
>> Consider this a scientific project. An emotion-free attitude helps. :-)
>
> A yes/no feature-wise comparison is probably too simple for comparing sophisticated web frameworks.
>
> Skimming through the feature list, I have the same reactions that others have because some features are just not well defined and others are immediately clear to be filled-out wrong for Seaside. Ramon named some of these.
> And just to be clear: it's not an emotional reaction. I like the initiative because I would like to know more about Iliad and Aida too.
>
> For building Yesplan, Seaside is a great framework because it offers a good level of abstraction (including over techniques like ajax - via jQuery) while at the same time it offers all the flexibility to implement complex (e.g. non-standard) ways of interacting with the web application. I can imagine that having more techniques and functionality "under the hood" (like standard widgets or the 'tab enter' that was mentioned) seems like a productivity improvement, but in my experience, such "standard components" hardly ever apply in more complex situations. Instead, if you have a flexible environment that offers just that right level of abstraction, you can build really complex applications.

>> For comparing, it would be really good to have the same application
>> written in the three frameworks by experts and have the experts compare
>> them. Hey, if I find the time (oeps) I would even love to help out on that
>> one.
>
> Agreed! And I'm hardly waiting for someone to come out with an idea,
> what to build for such comparison. I have one, but you will for sure
> declare me biased again .. :) A so called real-time web example: a
> multi-user chat. As that one on GMail, for instance. Another would be a
> basic CRUD example, which is so common pattern, filling that 90% of
> cases, to show, how the frameworks cover the people's most basic needs.
>
> Best regards
> Janko
>

> On 22 Jun 2011, at 22:42, Janko Mivšek wrote:
>
>>> Clearly JTalk is innovative.
>>> Anything similar you'd like to share with us?
>>
>> Certainly the seamless Ajax integration,
>
> I absolutely agree. I have been tampering with that some time ago because we made something application-specific for Yesplan that I think can be refactored and integrated into Seaside itself. In addition, we need something like the jquery history plugin to cooperate with Seaside's continuations because our users hit that back button all the time, which gives quite strange results when you did a lot of ajax updates since the last full request.
>
> I just

> On 6/22/11, Janko Mivšek <[hidden email]> wrote:
> ...
>>> For comparing, it would be really good to have the same application
>>> written in the three frameworks by experts and have the experts compare
>>> them. Hey, if I find the time (oeps) I would even love to help out on that
>>> one.
>>
>> Agreed! And I'm hardly waiting for someone to come out with an idea,
>> what to build for such comparison. I have one, but you will for sure
>> declare me biased again .. :) A so called real-time web example: a
>> multi-user chat. As that one on GMail, for instance. Another would be a
>> basic CRUD example, which is so common pattern, filling that 90% of
>> cases, to show, how the frameworks cover the people's most basic needs.
>>
>> Best regards
>> Janko
>>
>
> Hello Janko
>
> Maybe a sample application which is combination of both your suggestions :-).
>
>
> A kind of more elaborate ToDo list (cf. the Seaside example in the tutorial)
>
> Features:
> - Multi-user
> - The users see a list of ToDo items and sees to whom they are assigned.
> - In a chat area they can discuss about the items and reassign them accordingly.
> - Some views/reports (current tasks, my tasks, finished tasks, task in
> a particular month).
>
> If you want more
> - A wiki in addition
> - A glossary (special terms in the reports are automatically
> hyper-linked to a glossary entry)
>
> Best regards
> Hannes
>
> P.S. I am sure that other people have better ideas.
> I have no idea how much time this takes to implement in Aida/Web. In
> Seaside it is quite an effort.