Hello Igor

Thanks for extensive design explanation and effort!
Issues you mentioned in previous emails are important and need to be
addressed :)
fill(), stroke() fillPreserve() strokePreserve() need to disappear in the
end. We will come back to them later.

Let me tell a few words about Sparta.
Sparta implements Athens interface api (excluding some experimental stuff
to test possible performance boost in a few places) and does not have task
to remove Athens style and abstractions. Ideally Sparta will be AthensCairo
for bloc. I'm looking forward for your help :)

Here are some aspects in AthensCairo that Sparta tries to address in first
place:

   - *Clipping in local coordinates*. It is critical in Bloc. You
   implemented AthensCairo to have vector based rendering in Morphic and Pharo
   in general. Morphic lives in global coordinates, so your choice to clip in
   global coordinate is perfect! At the same time global clipping in bloc adds
   complexity. Sparta clips always in local coordinates (user space in cairo
   terminology).
   - *Clip by arbitrary path*. Athens and AthenCairo expect to see
   aRectangle as clipping region - your wise choice for morphic. In bloc I
   would have clipping by arbitrary path. clipBy:during: gets aPath.
   Rectangle/Color is polymorphic with path/paint in Sparta
   - *Support of groups*. (maybe user-level aspect? like shadows) Groups
   are powerful in cairo (do they exist outside of cairo?) and allow to draw
   both transparent fill and stroke without overlapping using only one path.
   On class side of BlElement there are examples (exampleCircle) that show
   such behavior.
   - *Do not maintain and set pathTransformation before each
   render-dependent action.* Questionable but what if Canvas will not
   maintain current state of pathTransform? Instead all transformations can be
   directly applied on cairo_t using native calls. If there is a need to get
   actual matrix we can ask cairo directly. From my perspective it simplifies
   transformation stuff a little bit.
   - *Benefit from cairo_save and cairo_restore.* AthensCairo maintains
   state manually by setting transformation matrix and clip. Instead we could
   save and restore state without caring about clip/matrix which simplifies
   code. Check SpartaCanvas>>#clipBy:during:


Cheers,
Alex

On Tue, Apr 5, 2016 at 2:12 PM, Igor Stasenko <siguc...@gmail.com> wrote:

>
> Couple more words about that fill() function abstraction.
> Now you probably understand why there's no notion of stroke operation in
> Athens.
> Because instead of introducing it that way, by adding new kind of a
> function
> stroke(shape,paint)
> from our perspective, it falls into our more generic fill() function,
> except that
> instead of literally filling the shape we deciding to paint a stroke:
> fill(shape, strokePaint).
>
> As i said, there's nothing that tells that fill() function must affect
> only areas enclosed by the shape.
> For instance, you could imagine, that i'm in contrary, may want to fill
> everything , but the area(s) enclosed by given shape. And that still can be
> represented as invocation of our generic fill() function, except that we
> will use a different kind of paint, that will fill everything outside
> designated region, i.e.:
> fill(shape, fillOutsidePaint)
>
>
>
> On 5 April 2016 at 14:33, Igor Stasenko <siguc...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On 5 April 2016 at 04:00, Ben Coman <b...@openinworld.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On Tue, Apr 5, 2016 at 2:51 AM, Igor Stasenko <siguc...@gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>> >
>>> > Some more bashing today.. (don't take it personal, i may be wrong)
>>> >
>>> > BlPath hierarchy.. and BlShape.
>>> >
>>> > Why you redefining what is shape and what is path?
>>> > Of course, you are free to do it in Bloc..
>>> > But in terms of Athens, all of BlPath are actually - shapes..
>>> > And BlShape is some kind of encapsulation of shape, paints and
>>> transform.
>>> > It is a dumb state holder without any extra logic.
>>> >
>>> > My rule of thumb: do not produce dumb state holders. They has to be
>>> smart,
>>> > else it makes no sense in creating separate entity and designating it
>>> as
>>> > something else than any other bunch of data thrown into single clump,
>>> > sitting there deaf, blind, dead and silent until someone else will
>>> grab it
>>> > somewhere
>>> > and start using it for own purpose.
>>> >
>>> > Sure, i could understand, why you potentially may want such object(s)
>>> > around,
>>> > but it is not shape anymore and i wouldn't call it like that. Because
>>> shape
>>> > are shape, and has nothing to do with paints and transform,
>>> > it don't knows and don't cares whether it will be filled or stroked or
>>> both,
>>> >  and how many times, and if there will be single paint or thousand.
>>> > Such kind of properties is simply orthogonal to what shape existing
>>> for,
>>> > because it exists only to define geometry.
>>> >
>>> > I think all of that came from not understanding the roles of objects
>>> and how
>>> > they interact in Athens.
>>>
>>> Can you point us to documentation that describes Athen's architecture
>>> for these interactions?
>>> (sorry I haven't checked class comments, but I'm looking to start with
>>> something at higher level anyway)
>>>
>>
>> No, i can't point it out. And you are right , this is nobody else's fault
>> than my own. I feel ashamed. Sure how i could demand that people understand
>> the concepts, if i didn't explained then anywhere (or if i did, it is not
>> in easily reachable place).
>>
>> So, lets fix that. I will write it down here, and you can pick it up and
>> find suitable place for it.
>>
>> ----------
>> Basic abstractions behind Athens.
>>
>> Since Athens is about drawing graphics, we need a media where all drawing
>> operations will appear. We call that media a surface.
>> The surface is abstract. It can have set dimensions, or don't.  We don't
>> define if it representing some kind of physical surface (like part of the
>> display screen), or how it storing the data inside. We leaving an
>> introduction of such details to concrete surface implementation.
>> All that matters is that surface is a final target of all our drawing
>> operations.
>> Therefore, in Athens, a surface is usually a starting point where all
>> begins from, and you doing so by creating a specific surface.
>> It is surface's responsibility then, to provide user a means how he can
>> draw on it, and therefore there is a number of factory methods, that
>> allowing you to create a canvas, paints and shapes. All those three are
>> specific implementation of AthensCanvas, AthensPaint and AthensShape
>> protocols, suitable to be used with specific surface implementation that
>> you using.
>>
>> Canvas.
>> Canvas represents a basic drawing context. We don't allow a direct
>> operations with surface, but instead we provide a context, that contains
>> and carries all information that represents a current stage of drawing
>> operations.
>> This includes things like, current coordinate transformation(s),
>> currently selected paint and shape, and paint mode.
>>
>> In order to obtain canvas, one must use #drawDuring: message sent to
>> surface with block as argument. The given block receives an instance of
>> AthensCanvas as a single parameter. We intentionally enclosing all possible
>> drawing operations within a block to make sure that when we leave, we can
>> safely release all resources that was allocated, required to hold the
>> drawing context state. By exposing it in such form, we also making sure
>> that nothing can alter the surface outside a given block. That way, it
>> gives users a definitive answer, whether he finished drawing operations or
>> not, and if it safe to operate with surface for things like saving it to
>> file, or using it as a source for more complex operations, like acting as a
>> paint to fill area(s) inside another surface etc.
>>
>> Paints and shapes.
>> A starting point is answering a question, how we can represent a
>> simplest, elementary drawing operation on a surface without putting too
>> much constraints.
>> We doing so by postulating that any elementary drawing operation can be
>> expressed by a function:
>>
>> fill(paint, shape)
>>
>> Please, note that 'fill' here is not a literally fill given shape with
>> given paint. We call it 'fill' for simplicity reason. It can anything that
>> altering the surface, but always taking into account given parameters:
>> paint and shape.
>>
>> Then, from that perspective we can clearly say what are the roles and
>> responsibility of shapes and paints.
>>
>> The shape defines the affected region, its geometry and location,
>> while paint defines how that region will be altered.
>> In this way, most of more complex operations can be expressed as a series
>> of such function invocations by using various paints and shapes.
>>
>> Such representation also gives us a minimal set of roles, a building
>> bricks, that we need to introduce in order to represent any kind of drawing
>> operation we may need, as well as a minimal functionality in order to
>> implement such function(s). And therefore a minimal protocol(s), that all
>> paints and shapes should implement.
>>
>> Since there potentially infinite number of various paint kinds and shape
>> kinds, we cannot make a single function that will implement all possible
>> permutations in order to fill shape with concrete paint.
>> To solve that we introducing a straight dispatch mechanism, where we
>> delegate the responsibility of implementing a concrete case, first to
>> shape, and then to paint.
>>
>> The API representing this function in canvas by #draw protocol.
>> It takes currently selected paint and currently selected shape and
>> starting dispatch:
>>
>> draw
>> "Fill the currently selected shape with currently selected paint"
>> ^ shape paintFillsUsing: paint on: self
>>
>> So, first it goes to the shape, by sending #paintFillsUsing:on: ,
>> then shape dispatching it further to paint by sending appropriate message
>> (be it #athensFillPath:on: or #athensFillRectangle:on: or anything else,
>> if you want to introduce new kind of shape representation and implement it
>> accordingly).
>> Such dispatch gives us an ability to easily extend the framework by
>> introducing new kind of shapes and paints , by implementing new kind of
>> fill() functions for them.
>>
>> -----------
>>
>> I hope that will make clear at least part of things what is there, behind
>> the scenes.
>>
>>
>>> cheers -ben
>>>
>>>
>>
>> --
>> Best regards,
>> Igor Stasenko.
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Best regards,
> Igor Stasenko.
>

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