langreiter.com plain, simple: comments-2008-05-10

LANGREITER.COM plain, simple

START

Samstag, 10. Mai 2008

Woah! John Resig ported (a lot of) Processing to JavaScript/Canvas; and not only the API, but also a fairly complete translator from Processing's Quasi-Java to JavaScript, which means that many (simple) Processing applications will run unmodified.

By the way, it's also quite easy to use the Processing API (from the original implementation) with Helma/Helma NG. Wiki note upcoming.

2008-05-10-mobro

Speaking of Helma NG: The Helma user meeting on Tuesday was a lot of fun; I greatly enjoyed both meeting people again (several after years) and seeing so many new Helma developers.

The key topic definitely was Helma NG, brand new and rapidly moving as it is. See Hannes' slides for some information on how (and why) it came about; from my perspective it boils down to a. in the core, focus on the essentials, b. less Java, more JavaScript and, closely related, c. provide a sensible module mechanism (something that's lacking from JavaScript-as-language).

In its current form, the most important piece missing in Helma NG when compared to Helma 1 is an object-relational mapping layer; consequently, the question of data persistence resulted in a great deal of (rather fruitful) discussion. In any case, JSAdapter support and Hannes' Minibase sketch should provide ample playground for experiments.

It's important to note that Helma NG is extremely flexible in terms of application structure; flexible enough to support e.g. a Rails-ish framework on top (amazingly enough, this has already been prototyped [slides] by Matthias Platzer). The one downside is that such flexibility makes it hard(er) for newcomers too see how to best structure NG applications (and currently, everyone is a newcomer); my guess is that soon enough patterns worth emulating will show up.