Web Frameworks and "Modern" Features

Hernan related running into the following limitations with Pharo web
frameworks. I wonder if these are all still missing or if any are now
available…

> None of them was easily adapted to the emerging web trends for the last
> years like the
> appearance of static site generators, adaptive/responsive design, multiple
> competing JS
> libraries, semantic web, mobility, etc. not to mention they lack
> "standard" built-in features
> such as caching, template, security frameworks.

"adaptive/responsive design" in particular seems like a pretty big
limitation given current expectations…



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Cheers,
Sean
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Sent from: http://forum.world.st/Pharo-Smalltalk-Developers-f1294837.html

Hi

I think we're doing OK and that its a "discoverability" problem not a "does
not exist or work" problem. E.g. here is Johan's talk about integrating
ReactJS & Seaside https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eSGO7QSz5c 

I think part of the problem is that Facebook/Google/Amazon dominate the 'new
hotness' discussions and no one has problems at their scale so the solutions
that work for them that they advocate that people adopt (so e.g. their
hiring pool is better for them) aren't necessarily necessary/appropriate for
smaller sites with fewer engineers.  

For responsive design if he means sites that look good on big or small
screens we're OK as its mostly a CSS problem which can be handled out of the
box by adopting either Torsten's Twitter Bootstrap library
(http://smalltalkhub.com/#!/~TorstenBergmann/Bootstrap) or Cyril's Google
Material Design adaptation (https://github.com/DuneSt/MaterialDesignLite)
if you're using Seaside.  Or just setting a few viewport width breakpoints
in your existing css and changing styles appropriately if you don't want to
adopt one of those frameworks or are using Teapot or Iliad or whatever.


For static-site generators you'd probably want to use Teapot
(http://smalltalkhub.com/#!/~zeroflag/Teapot) and just write the generated
HTML to a file.  For Seaside you could make one using WABuilder but would
need to add paths to all of the anchors on your site, which could be done
with a RB transformation rule if you had a ton of links.    


For the multiple competing JS library concern I'm not sure what that means
exactly but also how it could be any different in this community vs e.g.
Ruby/Rails.  Just gotta manage the namespaces in the DOM right I think?  If
its been a problem for me I've forgotten or haven't noticed.  



I'd be happy to learn more about the other things he mentions.  I know
there's this page that describes how Seaside has some inherent security
protections (http://seaside.st/about/security) but maybe he's referring to
something different? Also testing a Seaside site is pretty straightforward
with https://github.com/SeasideSt/Parasol


So anyway, I think its out there.  Mostly.  Except for buzz.  

There's definitely a very usable/useful set of things that can be done with
what we have today.  

But no question the Rails or JS communities have more because there are more
engineers/companies/resources in and behind them.  


Hope this helps.  


Paul



Sean P. DeNigris wrote




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Sent from: http://forum.world.st/Pharo-Smalltalk-Developers-f1294837.html

Paul DeBruicker wrote
> I think we're doing OK and that its a "discoverability" problem not a
> "does
> not exist or work" problem… So anyway, I think its out there.

Awesome answer! Really helpful. Thanks :)



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Cheers,
Sean
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Sent from: http://forum.world.st/Pharo-Smalltalk-Developers-f1294837.html