On Sunday, Aug 24, 2003, at 17:58 Europe/Rome, Steven Noels wrote:
Stefano Mazzocchi wrote:
One day I hope the anti-flow/pro-action people will simply stop sneaking doubts and come up with real arguments on why we shouldn't heavily bet on the flow.
I thought we were done with this balkanization thing, didn't we? I for one have just finished my first tiny flow-based application, and while I still find the edge layer where Java & Javascript meet each other quite murky, I had good fun while hacking on it. It's not about just black & white, Stefano.
The edges are rough. I cannot agree more. But this is *exactly* why I'm working hard in designing ways to polishing those edges without making anything else rougher.
Anyway, criticizing keeps use flow-lovers honest and with feet on the ground, so keep it up.
<dreaming>
What I would like to see, even if some of it might be nonsense, is a seriously integrated scripting environment to code the behaviour of a webapp, and flowscript is a nice way to start exploring that concept. With serious, I mean there should be a way to work with persistency, security, and back-end business logic without this stupid Packages thing, and, because of the continuous bouncing back & forward between Java and JS, not having to worry about the automagic typecasting that happens on the border between Java & Javascript.
I hate the "Packages" syntax as much as you do, believe me. But with real blocks, you will do
var component = cocoon.getComponent(..);
after having deployed your block live and you'll automagically get what you want (with implicit versioning and all that).
It will be the *real* dream of avalon finally coming true, versioned hotdeploying of components cannot be given by no technology out there (only .NET has such a concept, but they don't have continuations!)
Syntax-wise, I have about the same problem with JS as I have with Java, but that's because I find Python a tad more readible. There's people around here that would rather like to code flow in real Java, with dynamic recompilation and all that. There's room for diversity, and we should exploit that. Even Apples hooks in with the flow at some point. <aside>And Apples doesn't mean anything more to me than a personal adventure of a guy I like, on the same level of appreciation that Dywel has in my mind: nothing wrong with it, but where's the community?</aside>
What does the above have to do with adding interception to the flow?
We should work on serious JS-wrapping of services typically used in webapps, and extensive Avalonization of existing Cocoon code can help with that. There should be formalization of the border area between Java & JS, or we will kill ourselves with recurring user questions about the lack of explicit semantics & casting.
I totally agree, but again, this cannot work without blocks.
[and it seems that nobody is catching up with my plan for implementation so I will have to get my hands dirty and implement the whole thing by myself, :-(
Over time, I still hope that some Jython guru will pop up and make all this also possible using a language I've come to appreciate above JS, but that's entirely IMHO.
once you have a way to add continuations in java, you can have your jython thing for free.
</dreaming>
Of course, if we start from a discours of "either you're with us, or you're against us", well, all this might take a long time to happen. As much as you repeatedly come back on this so-called split between pro and contra, I'm quite sure that you are currently misguiding yourself (and through such remarks, also this community) about this so-called polarization. For myself, I started hating overweight sitemaps a long time ago. I'm also pretty sure some of the old action-farts will be amongst the people who, eventually, will make sure flowscript reaches the same level of robustness, documentation and user support that the 'old stuff' already has.
As I said, costructive criticism helps to keep people honest and I appreciate that.
I just happen to be a little nervous when I hear comments that don't look costructive. And yes, I might be too sensible on the issue, given the past discussions.
Oh, and I did read the rest of your mail, and you were right about AAA, interceptors and flow. I understand now. Thanks for your repeated efforts in educating the clueless. ;-D
When we add interception to a flowscript with continuations, we'll be so much ahead of the current state of the art that people will need a time machine to understand what we are talking about.
For this reason, I'm prepared to stand against years of people's inertia on radical paradigm changes, so I wouldn't say "clueless", I would just say "inertial".
But I have seen too many faces "illuminated" by the continuations concepts. I can only wonder what continuations and interception, together, can do to them ;-)
-- Stefano.
