Defining the Perfect Web Language / Platform (pointless discussion alert)

[Ryan Wray]

[...] but how that would pan out with server side development I have no idea, unless Marcus was referring to something else...

He mentions AJAX and a cancel button as an example. So, for instance if someone wanted make a search they could type there keyword in an press enter. Now, they may notice they misspelled the keyword(s) and will quickly hit 'Cancel'. This will notify the script that is running (by AJAX) of this event, where the script can decide what to do (for instance, cancel the search).

That is how I understand it anyway.

[Dr Livingston]

> He mentions AJAX and a cancel button as an example.

Yes... Yes I know that, but I was actually referring to those interrupts themselves, and how they could work from the point of view of the server and host OS in question - the real technicalality that normally would not effect web developers

As for your further comments, well that's taken care of by the browser, so directly you are not actually interacting with those said interrupts...

Please re-read my first paragraph on the other post I made to explain what an interrupt is

[rossriley]

Definitely put a vote in for the abolition of $this
I like Pythons way of handling scope in this regard.

Also like the direction that Rails is taking with .rjs templates, if you could handle your server-side and most of your client-side with one language that would be a lot more fluid.

The other thing I'd love to lose is the semi colons but that's not really web-specific..

Mentioned earlier but making security a default is an absolute essential. $_POST and $_GET should be filtered by default, original data should be available in a new $_POST_RAW_BUT_POSSIBLY_QUITE_DANGEROUS superglobal..... that might get the message across.

[Ryan Wray]

Closer to home, these interrupts are what gives you your client side Javascript event handling, but how that would pan out with server side development I have no idea

Sorry Dr. Livingston, it was this sentence that got me confused. To me this was saying how such a feature could be used in a server-side application, not so much how would such a feature be supported by the technologies that run the server-side application. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

[..] and how they could work from the point of view of the server and host OS in question

I don't see how the OS is involved. I was under the assumption that by interupts he was more specifically talking about events that happen within the scope of the browser, and how they can communicate with running scripts via AJAX.

As for your further comments, well that's taken care of by the browser, so directly you are not actually interacting with those said interrupts...

Would you mind expanding? I don't really get what you are trying to say.

[XoloX]

Seems -to me- like there's two types of interrupts:

Dr Livingston's: hardware/software interrupts: a signal that temporarily stops the execution of a program so that another procedure can be carried out.

The more general one: To make a break in; "We interrupt the program for the following messages".

Sorry for intruding, please do go on with this interesting discussion/brainstorm.

I've been following Neko with a close eye aswell, since I've been playing around with scaffolding / code generation / (automated) translation of OO to simple procedural code for quite a while now...

[mx2k]

you know, this read/thread really caught my eye, the first one in a long, long while. It is a shame that an ill-placed rant has push this thread somewhat off-topic.

wysiwyg editors, indeed. Even most modern browsers can not keep up with web standards at this point, and wysiwyg editors die when it comes to being able to use even most basic positioning css attributes, and css is essential to any professional level type of website. I smell sweatshop.

secondly, tween is an animation word and has been for some time, which flash is heavily animation based.... so your comparison is offbase. A proper comparison would have been pitch (audio) vs tweening (animation). Any seasoned proffessional would not stoop to arguing digital vs analog, but instead use a combination of the two to achieve stunning visual or amazing audio effects. A great illusion is always based to some degree in reality.



moving on.

would the perfect web based solution be compiled before or at run time?
would it be able to support mutilple syntax like with/without $
would it stuff all functions into an object similar to ruby?
would hashes and arrays become seperated entities?
would it support various templating methods?
would it be modular/component based to the point that you could add as needed?
I would love to be able to use mixins.
XML support is a must


(ps Marcus, if you would look at playing around with the Prototype JS library, I'm sure you would pick it up rather fast, looking at your Caching class example. I've hated javascript till I came across that library. Now i have made a good ways on a nice small reusable library )

[XoloX]

would the perfect web based solution be compiled before or at run time?

Something JIT like. The advantages of scripting & compilation! Are there disadvantages (except initial load time)?

would it stuff all functions into an object similar to ruby?

Objects all the way, though I'll get alot of negative responses on that one, since I guess it should be (as?) accessible as PHP is (though being accessible beyond a certain point has disadvantages aswell btw. )

would it be able to support mutilple syntax like with/without $

I'd say leave 'em out. Do they add anything except making variables different from constants, which are (okay, should be) uppercase anyway?

would hashes and arrays become seperated entities?

Both? As in, you can do anything you want with an array, but you can also explicitly tell the interpreter/compiler that something should be an (integer index) array or a hash, and depend on that functionality / let the compiler optimize.

Edit: To expand on that last one:

I was writing a Form class where you'd pass in Text, MultilineText & Select objects and it would render the form / validate, etc. I ran into a bit of a problem with the Select class: I had an addItems() method, which would accept an array. But select element children (<option>'s) can have just values or values and labels. How to differentiate a simple array (just options, whatever the type) from a complex array (where the keys are significant, whether integer/string)... In the end I added an extra parameter to make the distinction

[kyberfabrikken]

Something JIT like. The advantages of scripting & compilation! Are there disadvantages (except initial load time)?

An explicit compile step is annoying. PHP's model for this is good, although an opcode-cache should be standard. (It should for PHP too ...)

I'd say leave 'em out. Do they add anything except making variables different from constants, which are (okay, should be) uppercase anyway?

They do allow variable variables, which is rather cool. It could be archieved with eval, but ...

[Ren]

Not a language feature, but a compiling XSLT down to bytecode would be nice, so can be used in a streamming manner.

[XoloX]

An explicit compile step is annoying. PHP's model for this is good, although an opcode-cache should be standard. (It should for PHP too ...)

Agreed. +10 for the opcode cache.

They do allow variable variables, which is rather cool. It could be archieved with eval, but ...

You're right. eval() should be a last resort only : ).

/ ponders on

[DerelictMan]

They do allow variable variables, which is rather cool.

Eww. Is there actually a legitimate use for variable variables that cannot be more cleanly accomplished with a simple associative array? Don't variable variables tend to lead to the prototypical spaghetti that PHP programmers are so often criticized for producing?

Not flamebait, I'm genuinely curious if there are useful (i.e. non-hack) tricks that I could be accomplishing with variable variables that I'm unaware of...

[rossriley]

would the perfect web based solution be compiled before or at run time?
would it be able to support mutilple syntax like with/without $
would it stuff all functions into an object similar to ruby?
would hashes and arrays become seperated entities?
would it support various templating methods?
would it be modular/component based to the point that you could add as needed?
I would love to be able to use mixins.
XML support is a must

1. Runtime
2. Yes. And work back from local to class variable to avoid $this->...
3. Yes. However PHP seems to be taking the route of providing both Object and procedural syntax as in

$mysqli = new mysqli( .... 

or

$link = mysqli_connect( .... 

This is probably going to get too confusing the further down this route we go.
4. Agree with XoloX - both
5. Essential. It seems different work environments have different needs. We use PHPTAL for templating which is great for designer prototyping. If you are a more tightly disciplined team then perhaps php is enough for templating.
6. Yes modular with proper namespaces.
7. Yes. Lack of mixins or multiple inheritance is a bit of a downside to php.
8. As well as XML built in JSON and YAML woul be great too.

[mx2k]

what about a parser that compiles to bytecode depending on the modified date of a file,

JSON YAML (most definitely)

[DerelictMan]

what about a parser that compiles to bytecode depending on the modified date of a file

Python takes this approach (compiling .py files to .pyc files and then recompiling if the modification time of the .py is newer than the .pyc) and it seems to work well for them. Perhaps when the opcode cache is made a part of PHP6 it will work this way as well...

[lastcraft]

Hi...

you know, this read/thread really caught my eye, the first one in a long, long while. It is a shame that an ill-placed rant has push this thread somewhat off-topic.

Agreed. I have only now returned to this thread after the interlude.

would the perfect web based solution be compiled before or at run time?

Compile as needed, or optionally ahead of time so taht binary versions of applications can be distributed.

would it be able to support mutilple syntax like with/without $

When the $ is used for string substitution as well as variable, I find I don't that I resent it.

would it stuff all functions into an object similar to ruby?

No. Most web developers are amateurs and they are not going to need OO. We should keep the easy things easy, but make the clever stuff possible. Yes, everything should be an object underneath, but there is no need for this to be explicit. C++ manages to emulate all sorts of syntaxes.

would hashes and arrays become seperated entities?

Yes!

would it support various templating methods?

I think this can be handled with a funky block syntax. A kind of output buffering in reverse.

would it be modular/component based to the point that you could add as needed?

If it's all objects, then there should be no problem.

I would love to be able to use mixins.

It shortcuts the AOP stuff coming out of the Java world.

XML support is a must

Continuations are handy here too. There are some great Scheme and Haskell XML libraries (that drew me into these languages). The line between SAX/Pull/XSLT becomes blurred.

if you would look at playing around with the Prototype JS library...

Other guys I work with specialise in the front end stuff, and I've certainly heard them mention that library. If only I had time to learn everything .

Regarding AJAX and interrupts, yes it's just a special case of continuations. The feature list was just a quick brain dump.

yours, Marcus

[stereofrog]

Eww. Is there actually a legitimate use for variable variables that cannot be more cleanly accomplished with a simple associative array?

"varvars" are useful as long as php lacks indirect property referencing syntax. If we only had javascript's object[expression]...

[timvw]

There used to be a time where variable variables really seemed useful...

Now that i know that they exist in php (and how i have to use them) i just don't seem to run into situations anymore where i could actually use them.

[mx2k]

No. Most web developers are amateurs and they are not going to need OO. We should keep the easy things easy, but make the clever stuff possible. Yes, everything should be an object underneath, but there is no need for this to be explicit. C++ manages to emulate all sorts of syntaxes.

i agree with this with the most web developers are amateurs, but let me make sure that i am understanding you correctly. Does "everything should be an object underneath" mean the underlying program language, most likely c++ or would you be able to do prodedural syntax and then it would be stuffed into a global object of some sort?

I think this can be handled with a funky block syntax. A kind of output buffering in reverse.

an example if you would please. =)

Other guys I work with specialise in the front end stuff, and I've certainly heard them mention that library. If only I had time to learn everything .

i totally understand. my head has been deep into working over time with javascript and a fusion of js libraries on the dot net platform in conjuction with Atlas (their client js is nightmarish, but the text/xml-script declaration model is interesting , but i'm not sold on it because its placed inline via the html document and declaritive programming from an ms view is another thread entirely ), along with working on ocassionaly connected data synching model for a desktop application....sigh.


i would also have to add simplied webservice calls to the list, platform portability, and hey, maybe even a comefrom statement......... just for kicks

[dek]

"varvars" are useful as long as php lacks indirect property referencing syntax. If we only had javascript's object[expression]...

What's wrong with associative arrays?

[stereofrog]

Nothing, except they are not the objects In php, you cannot say

$o = new SomeObj;
echo $o[some + expression];

and this is exactly the reason why we stll need varvars:

$o = new SomeObj;
$v = some + expression;
echo $o->$v;

[Ren]

Nothing, except they are not the objects In php, you cannot say

$o = new SomeObj;
echo $o[some + expression];

Isn't that....

class SomeObj
{
    public $AA = 42;
}
$o = new SomeObj();
echo $o->{'A' . 'A'}; 

?

[kyberfabrikken]

Nothing, except they are not the objects In php, you cannot say

$o = new SomeObj;
echo $o[some + expression];

and this is exactly the reason why we stll need varvars:

If I'm not mistaken, it was actually possible at one point (php 4.3.??)

[Ezku]

Objects all the way, though I'll get alot of negative responses on that one, since I guess it should be (as?) accessible as PHP is (though being accessible beyond a certain point has disadvantages aswell btw. )

This I have trouble understanding. Who says objects aren't "accessible" and on what grounds does he base the argument on?

That said, Ruby does it fine in not shoving objects down your throat. Java does not. This (among other things) can be demonstrated by comparing a Ruby "Hello World!" to a Java one.

[Dr Livingston]

> That said, Ruby does it fine in not shoving objects down your throat. Java does not.

I don't believe having a base object as for example Java has, but apart from that one distinct fault, Java does it right in every other respect;

Anyways, back on topic now?

[mx2k]

edited. something about a really good dr.