On Saturday 13 February 2010 11:28:34 Thomas Sachau wrote: > On 02/13/2010 01:19 AM, Matthew Toseland wrote: > > On Friday 12 February 2010 00:50:30 Ian Clarke wrote: > >> > >> Firstly, all I've done is made a proposal, and defended that proposal, I'm > >> not dictating anything to anyone. > >> > >> The reality however is that FProxy is a mess. We've basically implemented > >> our own web framework, and it violates almost every rule of good web > >> framework design. We've got HTML structures implemented in Java code, and > >> no convenient support for AJAX, among other flaws. > > > > This was not explained in your prior email. And I disagree. HTML is > > supposed to be used for structure, there is nothing wrong with structure in > > code. Presentation should not be in the code, and neither should english > > strings, but they are not (okay, 99% of the time they are not). Yes it > > would be possible to express structure with a different language, say XML, > > but there would be no benefit, the outcome would be exactly the same, and > > the way we do it now we get compatibility with old/non-js/accessible > > browsers for free. We then convert structure to presentation using CSS > > (which can do *almost* anything, including drop-downs and menus), and we > > use Javascript for live data updating and occasionally for update-in-place > > interactive stuff. You may accuse this of being a 1999 model, but it's a > > perfectly good model. > > I agree on this > > > > The web-pushing branch provides convenient support for AJAX, specifically > > for live updating of on-screen elements. This has been implemented for many > > parts of the node: > > - The progress bar when loading a page. > > - Individual progress graphics and an overall summary message when loading > > a page with lots of inline images. > > - The downloads page. > > - The statistics page. > > - The connections pages. > > - The set of alerts shown on various pages. > > - The status line shown on every page. > > > > Some of this is a little clumsy visually (sashee isn't a designer), but > > accessing it from Java code is easy enough. > > Isnt all those AJAX stuff based upon javascript? What about those, who dont > have or want to use > javascript?
As I thought I had explained, javascript is used for live updating and for interactive in-place-updates. Neither is essential for basic functionality, but both make it a lot nicer. > > >> But if you accept that FProxy has serious and fundamental flaws, then it > >> makes perfect sense to replace it with a pre-existing open source web > >> framework that has elegantly solved all of these problems. GWT is the best > >> candidate for this I've found. > > > > I don't accept that, but I *do* support using GWT. GWT is a good means to > > generate cross platform Javascript code. > > I disagree with both of you. GWT is a mess, when you want to compile it > yourself without binary and > precompiled inclusions. So until you can present me a clean way to create a > GWT copy from source, i > strongly vote against it, this would make packagers work *much* harder. Here we have a problem. Thomas is the Gentoo package maintainer and we will probably lose having a semi-official Gentoo package if we use GWT, because GWT is *MAJOR* pain to clean-build. Several people have tried to package it for debian and given up when they saw how much work would be involved. However, I support using GWT anyway, because: - It is *possible* to clean-build it, and if there are enough things which need it, eventually it will be packaged. - It does what we want. Writing cross platform javascript is a PITA. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 835 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part. URL: <https://emu.freenetproject.org/pipermail/devl/attachments/20100213/92623319/attachment.pgp>
