Comparison of Aida/Web, Seaside and Iliad web frameworks

Dear Smalltalkers,

Few months ago I started a comparison of Aida, Seaside and Iliad web
frameworks, with initial goal to check the strengths and weaknesses of
Aida to draw a direction for future Aida development.

But later I came to idea (and was encouraged also by Stef and others) to
improve it and make this comparison public, therefore for all of you. I
then invited few Iliad and Seaside guys to help balance the comparison,
but unfortunately Seasiders were not willing to join, with their stated
reason that spreadsheet of comparative features is not the best way to
do such comparison. My answer is that a form of spreadsheet is a
simplest start of such comparison. This feature list and check marks can
be later a foundation for some more advanced comparison. We need to
start from somewhere and such checkmarked spreadsheet is easiest to
achieve in a shortest time.

So, now I'm inviting all of you to take a look at this Google Docs
spreadsheet and comment it. This way we will come at least one step
closer to so needed comparison:

https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Atnb1W9vuq9ndGRTUFIzT3VON0lTQ3JxdlZYTUxhOFE&hl=en&authkey=CJva7-8L&pli=1#gid=0

Best regards
Janko


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Aida/Web
Smalltalk Web Application Server
http://www.aidaweb.si
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what about unit-test coverage and integration-test?



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Hi Bernardo,

For Code statistics covering also tests (but not actual test coverage)
see already published stats:

https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Atnb1W9vuq9ndG4wbUpxNXpKQnFZRlFyQXpHclhZa2c&hl=sl#gid=1

Best regards
Janko

S, Bernardo Ezequiel Contreras piše:

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Thanks, Janko.

2011/6/21 Janko Mivšek <[hidden email]>:


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On 06/21/2011 01:17 PM, Janko Mivšek wrote:
> So, now I'm inviting all of you to take a look at this Google Docs
> spreadsheet and comment it. This way we will come at least one step
> closer to so needed comparison:

Seaside can do clean URL's
Seaside most certainly does do automatic URL generation
Seaside absolutely allows multiple websites served from one image
Seaside supports Comet
Seaside absolutely can do single page apps

I give up, too many things wrong or simply labeled in such as way as to
exclude anything other than AIDA from saying yes.

Tabulation with Enter... are you kidding me, that has absolutely nothing
to do with a web framework.  That's one of a dozen similar examples of
such things.

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I have to agree with Ramon here and get a sense it would have been a better start to have empty values for Seaside/Iliad and remove items that aren't generally considered part of the core framework and usually are packaged as add-ons.

-Boris

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Ramon Leon
Sent: Tuesday, June 21, 2011 4:46 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [Seaside] Comparison of Aida/Web, Seaside and Iliad web frameworks

On 06/21/2011 01:17 PM, Janko Mivšek wrote:
> So, now I'm inviting all of you to take a look at this Google Docs
> spreadsheet and comment it. This way we will come at least one step
> closer to so needed comparison:

Seaside can do clean URL's
Seaside most certainly does do automatic URL generation Seaside absolutely allows multiple websites served from one image Seaside supports Comet Seaside absolutely can do single page apps

I give up, too many things wrong or simply labeled in such as way as to exclude anything other than AIDA from saying yes.

Tabulation with Enter... are you kidding me, that has absolutely nothing to do with a web framework.  That's one of a dozen similar examples of such things.

--
Ramon Leon
http://onsmalltalk.com
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Hi Ramon,

First calm down, then approach professionally to such a comparison. More
below,

S, Ramon Leon piše:
> On 06/21/2011 01:17 PM, Janko Mivšek wrote:
>> So, now I'm inviting all of you to take a look at this Google Docs
>> spreadsheet and comment it. This way we will come at least one step
>> closer to so needed comparison:
>
> Seaside can do clean URL's

It is a difference if this is essential part of a framework or it is
"add on".

> Seaside most certainly does do automatic URL generation

Again, in Aida every domain object can have an Url and this one is
automatically generated. I'm not aware of such feature in Seaside.

> Seaside absolutely allows multiple websites served from one image

Just recent thread shows that this is not true.

> Seaside supports Comet

I didn't question that, Comet is already checked. Which technique?

> Seaside absolutely can do single page apps

Be aware that we are comparing here out-of-the-box features and not
add-ons, not to mention hacks needed for some feature.

>
> I give up, too many things wrong or simply labeled in such as way as to
> exclude anything other than AIDA from saying yes.
>
> Tabulation with Enter... are you kidding me, that has absolutely nothing
> to do with a web framework.  That's one of a dozen similar examples of
> such things.

Tabulation with enter is surely very important for any accounting apps
where you need to enter rapidly a large amount of numbers from numeric
keypad only. Imagine one hand keying up those numbers, how will you pres
Tab key that way?


Best regards
Janko


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

The issue with including add-ons in this comparison is fundamental - there's actually a focus in making sure the Seaside core focused and everything else is modularized and loadable on top. Now, if you just load Seaside Core and do a comparison, you can then change many of the existing Yays into Nays. So unless we can somehow agree on what's important in 'core' and what's an 'add-on', any meaningful comparison will be impossible to achieve. To take that a bit sideways, who's to say that built-in form validation or even Ajax behavior suits all requirements? I know a number of people who pride themselves on tweaking the smallest bits of behavior to improve their applications and they'll never agree that one-size-fits-all approach to Ajaxifying form is the right thing to do. I'm afraid there's as many opinions as there are people in each community and joint comparison is a bit of a pipe dream. I don't recall seeing Microsoft/Oracle/IBM coordinating on the efforts to create a fair comparison of their databases, but I do see a lot of comparisons created by those companies to make their products stand out in areas of strength...

As for multiple sites from the same image, we do it all the time here, which messages are you referring to?

You can see we're all passionate about our frameworks of choice, so let's thread lightly ;)

-Boris


-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Janko Mivšek
Sent: Tuesday, June 21, 2011 5:02 PM
To: Seaside - general discussion
Subject: Re: [Seaside] Comparison of Aida/Web, Seaside and Iliad web frameworks

Hi Ramon,

First calm down, then approach professionally to such a comparison. More below,

S, Ramon Leon piše:
> On 06/21/2011 01:17 PM, Janko Mivšek wrote:
>> So, now I'm inviting all of you to take a look at this Google Docs
>> spreadsheet and comment it. This way we will come at least one step
>> closer to so needed comparison:
>
> Seaside can do clean URL's

It is a difference if this is essential part of a framework or it is "add on".

> Seaside most certainly does do automatic URL generation

Again, in Aida every domain object can have an Url and this one is automatically generated. I'm not aware of such feature in Seaside.

> Seaside absolutely allows multiple websites served from one image

Just recent thread shows that this is not true.

> Seaside supports Comet

I didn't question that, Comet is already checked. Which technique?

> Seaside absolutely can do single page apps

Be aware that we are comparing here out-of-the-box features and not add-ons, not to mention hacks needed for some feature.

>
> I give up, too many things wrong or simply labeled in such as way as
> to exclude anything other than AIDA from saying yes.
>
> Tabulation with Enter... are you kidding me, that has absolutely
> nothing to do with a web framework.  That's one of a dozen similar
> examples of such things.

Tabulation with enter is surely very important for any accounting apps where you need to enter rapidly a large amount of numbers from numeric keypad only. Imagine one hand keying up those numbers, how will you pres Tab key that way?


Best regards
Janko


--
Janko Mivšek
Aida/Web
Smalltalk Web Application Server
http://www.aidaweb.si
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2011/6/21 Janko Mivšek <[hidden email]>:
> Dear Smalltalkers,
>
> Few months ago I started a comparison of Aida, Seaside and Iliad web
> frameworks, with initial goal to check the strengths and weaknesses of
> Aida to draw a direction for future Aida development.

IMHO I think the VERY MOST important check box in the comparison is
the 'has book' one.  I.E. documentation!

Features without documentation is almost useless.  I say 'almost'
because someone can look at the code and they can ask questions in the
appropriate forum, but without documentation, a meaningful overview of
the framework is near impossible.

Elliot
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On 06/21/2011 02:01 PM, Janko Mivšek wrote:
> First calm down

I'm perfectly calm, why would you think otherwise?  Don't confuse
directness with excitement or anger.

>> Seaside can do clean URL's
>
> It is a difference if this is essential part of a framework or it is
> "add on".

Overriding a method and saying this URL goes there is something you do
in pretty much any website in Seaside, it's domain specific, you do
clean URL's when you need clean URL's and use the automatic ones by
default in all other cases.  That's not an add on, it's a technique.

> Again, in Aida every domain object can have an Url and this one is
> automatically generated. I'm not aware of such feature in Seaside.

And in Seaside, every callback gets an automatically generated URL, it's
Seasides greatest feature, no need to ever think about URL's at all,
unless you want to.  You're taking a very specific thing that only AIDA
does and is not at all a common thing to a web framework and saying
other frameworks are missing it.  So it might be good marketing, but
it's a bad comparison.

>> Seaside absolutely allows multiple websites served from one image
>
> Just recent thread shows that this is not true.

No, you read a thread that says it doesn't handle multiple domains based
on the host header by default.  That's a vastly different thing and in
all seriousness, an utterly unimportant one.  Apache or whatever front
end web server you're using should be doing that, not the web framework.
  That's not a Seaside issue, it's a Kom issue.  I can put 100 websites
all served from different domains into a single image if the front end
web server supports hosting 100 domains.

>> Seaside supports Comet
>
> I didn't question that, Comet is already checked. Which technique?

I may have misread that.  Lukas comet package uses the never ending
iFrame technique.  I've played around with long polling, but with
Seaside's global request lock per session it's problematic to do.

>> Seaside absolutely can do single page apps
>
> Be aware that we are comparing here out-of-the-box features and not
> add-ons, not to mention hacks needed for some feature.

Choosing to build your app as one page with AJAX or many with page
transitions has nothing to do with a feature comparison of web
frameworks.  This just doesn't belong here at all.

> Tabulation with enter is surely very important for any accounting apps
> where you need to enter rapidly a large amount of numbers from numeric
> keypad only. Imagine one hand keying up those numbers, how will you pres
> Tab key that way?

Again, nothing to do with web frameworks.  This all happens in the
browser, you aren't doing anything that any other website on the planet
can't do.

You should remove from this comparison list everything that is just a
technique you use because techniques aren't features. In fact, if you
want a really fair comparison, you'd go find a comparison between say,
Rails and its competitors to get an idea of how your feature list
compares to what's expected to be in a web framework.

You just listed a bunch of stuff from AIDA, much of it application level
stuff you've implemented, that really has nothing to do with web
frameworks in general.  You've mixed in web server, web framework, UI
framework, and random utility things all together.  You should question
the presense of every single item where AIDA is yes and the other two
frameworks are no.

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Hi Janko,
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S, Ramon Leon piše:

...(later)

>> Tabulation with enter is surely very important for any accounting apps
>> where you need to enter rapidly a large amount of numbers from numeric
>> keypad only. Imagine one hand keying up those numbers, how will you pres
>> Tab key that way?
>
> Again, nothing to do with web frameworks.  This all happens in the
> browser, you aren't doing anything that any other website on the planet
> can't do.

Wrong! Web framework support is essential for such a feature.

Well, who is the arbitrer which features belongs to web framework and
which no? Seaside? What I did I just list what Aida has and how compares
to Seaside and Iliad, And invited you guys to complete this comparison,
don't forget that! Disclaimer is clearly shown at the top of the
comparison and Seasiders are (and were) welcome to help balancing it.
Please do so!

Best regards
Janko

--
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Aida/Web
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Hi Boris,

We need to set a border to where to go with a comparison and this one
has a simple one: out-of the-box features.Wwith few clearly marked
exceptions (like CMS suport etc).

With a reason as you already hinted: it is very hard to compare
including addons. Specially if you don't know exaclty, which ones are,
say, officially suported and which not. Which is a common problem for
all open-source problems, where ranking is not very clear, not only for
Smalltalk ones. I'm aware that Aida with his a bit different, more
all-in-one approach has an advantage here. But again, at least some
comparison is better than nothing, right?

Best regards
Janko


S, Boris Popov, DeepCove Labs piše:

> The issue with including add-ons in this comparison is fundamental - there's actually a focus in making sure the Seaside core focused and everything else is modularized and loadable on top. Now, if you just load Seaside Core and do a comparison, you can then change many of the existing Yays into Nays. So unless we can somehow agree on what's important in 'core' and what's an 'add-on', any meaningful comparison will be impossible to achieve. To take that a bit sideways, who's to say that built-in form validation or even Ajax behavior suits all requirements? I know a number of people who pride themselves on tweaking the smallest bits of behavior to improve their applications and they'll never agree that one-size-fits-all approach to Ajaxifying form is the right thing to do. I'm afraid there's as many opinions as there are people in each community and joint comparison is a bit of a pipe dream. I don't recall seeing Microsoft/Oracle/IBM coordinating on the efforts to create a f
air comparison of their databases, but I do see a lot of comparisons created by those companies to make their products stand out in areas of strength...
--
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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?
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>> Again, nothing to do with web frameworks.  This all happens in the
>> browser, you aren't doing anything that any other website on the planet
>> can't do.
>
> Wrong! Web framework support is essential for such a feature.

It sounds like you're saying I can't implement this feature in pure
JavaScript.  I know I can, so I don't see how it has anything at all to
do with the web framework.

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Hi Nick,

Am 21.06.2011 um 23:59 schrieb Nick Ager <[hidden email]>:
> 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?

while it's easy to perceive the whole initiative as flamebait, this is surely not about flamewars or even just winning. It's about getting an overview of the existing frameworks and their core features. It's just a survey. Not a competition.

Of course some advocates of this or another framework will tend to get it wrong; that's a natural reaction. An unnecessary one, though.

The spreadsheet is not perfect. But everyone can make contributions, even to the way it's organised.

The distinction between "out of the box" on the one hand, and "add on", "workaround", or "hacked" features does not make full sense? Great: then how about finding a more appropriate way of defining "feature" than the current one?

Consider this a scientific project. An emotion-free attitude helps. :-)

Best,

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Hi Janko

I'm curious about the features/differences between the three frameworks.

However, the current list appears to favour Aida/Web, and has been created by you; therefore it comes across as more of an advertisement than a comparison.  When such lists are compiled by anyone with a vested interest (eg. the creator!), suspicions and criticisms will be inevitable.  It is inescapable, regardless of your intentions.

So this is an undertaking that must be balanced very delicately, otherwise there is a risk of becoming alienated within the Smalltalk web community.

I'd say that the first thing to do when considering a comparison list is to poll others to find out which features should be compared - before even making a comparison!  There's already been some hard 'discussion' on this mailing list, yet the spreadsheet hasn't been edited to reflect those opinions.  So perhaps already people are shunning it, which makes it less valuable.

Also, when there are fundamental differences in the way a framework approaches the problem, a discrete list of 'features' becomes meaningless.  (It's like comparing Lisp and C - a feature comparison is impossible, because they are different paradigms!)  If this is the case, then the three frameworks should be examined at a more abstract level...  Ideally by an independent entity ;-)

Amir
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