mochazone

Fresh Javascript IDE in Ganymede Eclipse release

Sat, 28 Jun 2008 10:46:00 GMT

I just tried the new Ganymede Eclipse release, which includes JSDT, the fresh JavaScript IDE as part of the new 3.0 version of the Web Tools Project. Previously, I have been using the JSEclipse plugin because it was much snappier than the Javascript support in the WTP. According to my first impression with Ganymede, Javascript editing seems snappier compare to previous WTP versions I've tried, but still slower then JSEclipse, so I'm not yet sure whether I will stick with the new JSDT or install the JSEclipse plugin again.

Unfortunately, the JSDT doesn't have E4X support yet, that would have been a big selling point for me. On the plus side, it offers some pretty nifty code validation capabilities, making sure that objects and properties are defined, and which works over multiple files, similar to IntelliJ. Bending the code validation and completion features to work right for Helma development would be no trivial task, I'm sure, which makes these cool features less attractive for server-side Javascript development.

28.6.2008, 10:46

Helma at the Linuxwochen in Linz

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 18:37:00 GMT

This weekend Anton Pirker will give a small introduction session to Helma at the Linuxwochen in Linz, Austria. The presentation will be tomorrow Saturday, June 28th at 12:00 at the Kunstuniversit�t Linz in Saal 1.

27.6.2008, 18:37

Brendan on the state of Javascript evolution

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 15:16:00 GMT

In this short interview, Brendan Eich repeats some of his comments regarding the positions of TC-39 TG1 members on ECMAScript 3.1 and ECMAScript 4, and the delivery of the latter in stealth mode to IE users via ScreamingMonkey and Adobe.

24.6.2008, 15:16

Is AppleScript done?

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 00:01:00 GMT

Daniel Jalkut sees the advent of SquirrelFish as an opportunity for Apple to dump AppleScript in favor of Javascript. The idea of using Javascript as a replacement for the AppleScript scripting language in OSX is nothing new. Late Night Software's Javascript OSA has offered that ability for many years already. Daniel's point is that Apple could do a better job at integrating Javascript with the Open Scripting Architecture.

I don't really see SquirrelFish as a factor in this, but certainly agree with the general sentiment. Yes, AppleScript may be more approachable for non-programmers, but Apple now has Automator for that purpose and fighting Javascript is a loosing battle anyway: Javascript will be the lingua franca for scripting purposes anywhere.

16.6.2008, 0:01

ES4 Draft 1 and ES3.1 Draft 1

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:48:00 GMT

In recent days, new partial drafts for the upcoming ECMAScript specs have become available. Parts of the ECMAScript 4 spec draft were previously spread all over the email archives. Nice to have them compiled in one place. The ECMAScript 3.1 spec draft wasn't available at all before, as far as I'm aware.

12.6.2008, 14:48

Want ES4 in Helma today?

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 23:30:00 GMT

Then take the just released Mascara Javascript 2 to Javascript 1 converter written in Python, run it using Jython on the Java Virtual Machine, and invoke it using Rhino inside of Helma, evaluating the results. Ok, now my head hurts.

11.6.2008, 23:30

SquirrelFish!

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 13:09:00 GMT

SquirrelFish! It's a new bytecode interpreter in Apple's JavaScriptCore inspired by Lua. While the switch to a bytecode interpreter brings Apple's Javascript engine more in line with the engines of Mozilla and Adobe, there are still some different approaches in SquirrelFish compared to the Tamarin based ActionMonkey project (which will replace SpiderMonkey in the future).

9.6.2008, 13:09

ES4 comes to IE via Screaming Monkey

Thu, 29 May 2008 09:37:00 GMT

Mark Hammond announced a first binary release of Screaming Monkey - the Tamarin based Active Scripting Engine for IE that will deliver ECMAScript 4 support as a replacement scripting engine for JScript.

One likely scenario is that Adobe will include Screaming Monkey as part of a future Flash version to distribute it to virtually all IE browser users, making Javascript 2.0 a viable target platform for Web Applications in a reasonable amount of time.

29.5.2008, 9:37

Apple's position on ECMAScript 4 proposals

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 10:29:00 GMT

Finally, the Apple folks are getting around to adding their thumbs up or down to the list of ES4 proposals.

They "applied red rather more liberally than the other vendors", as they themselves put it. They made some interesting votes: No "like"?, no "Namespace"?, no Function.bind?, no "let"? Unfortunately, they red inked the proposals related to adding meta object support. On the other hand, they red inked Nullability and Non-nullable classes, which doesn't make me cry.

Forthcoming at the end of this week will be a whitepaper explaining the criteria they applied along with the rational behind the votes on proposals where Apple's position differs from the one of other vendors. Until then, there is only so much that can be read into those red flags.

30.4.2008, 10:29

Helma Meeting Spring 2008

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 19:19:00 GMT

The Helma Meeting Spring 2008, a real-world gathering of Helma users and developers, will take place on May 6th or 7th at werkzeugH in Vienna, Austria.

Let's get together and talk about upcoming Helma 1.7 features, exchange ideas for the future of the Helma project and discuss anything else that needs to be addressed.

Join us if you can!

Upate: The date is now definitely set to May 6th.

22.4.2008, 19:19

Attila Szegedi about Rhino, Helma and Server-Side Javascript, and scripting on the JVM in general

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 20:08:00 GMT

Floyd Marinescu interviewed Attila Szegedi during JAOO in Aarhus, Denmark last fall and the video of this interview is now online on InfoQ.

Attila mentions Helma as a "quite renowned" server-side framework when asked "What are some of the best usage patterns for embedding Javascript within Java applications?". The other example he highlights is HtmlUnit, which provides an API for the simulation of web browsers such as Firefox or Internet Explorer, modeling HTML pages on the server-side, even with quite complex AJAX functionality (He says "HttpUnit" instead of "HtmlUnit", but I always get those mixed up, too).

Of course, he also gets asked about Rhino on Rails and points out that Rhino is used in several projects within Google and that many of the currently most active Rhino contributors are now Google employees. By the way, since this interview was made, Norris Boyd, who is now one of these Google employees, has again taken over as maintainer of the Rhino Project.

16.4.2008, 20:08

Helma 1.6.2 ready to download

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 11:06:00 GMT

This new version adds req.uri and req.actionHandler to better support continuation and callback functionality. It contains a new Rhino snapshot from 2008-02-05 with the default JS language version now set to 1.7 and added support for JSAdapter. Several bugs were fixed, including some related to starting and stopping applications, one that kept repositories from working when deploying Helma through Tomcat, and some related to debugging Helma applications:

Added req.uri and req.actionHandler to better support continuation and callback functionality.
Replaced Transactor thread with a ThreadLocal variable.
Fixed wrong classloader/rhino context when Application.init() was called from another app.
When prototypes use multiple parent mappings, the hopobject.href() method didn't work properly in 1.6.1.
Fixed manage app to show stopped apps that even if they are not using their default repository.
The onInit method of the root object was not called except when helma was first started.
Fixed a problem that kept repositories from working when deploying Helma through Tomcat.
Changed the way hopobject.getById is defined, so that its value is accessible when it is references without invoking the method.
Fixed a bug that prevented debugger windows from properly closing when an app was stopped from the manage app.
With sqlLog enabled, the logging code in helma.Database threw an exception.
Fixed a problem where the Debugger didn't display properties of current context on Mac OS X.
Leading/trailing whitespace in object names is now allowed.
In 1.6.1, there was a problem casting string values to OR-mapped tinyint(1) DB fields.
Changed the way "=" signs in request parameter values are handled.

See the change log for more details and - most importantly - go download Helma 1.6.2!

8.4.2008, 11:06

Larry Lessig's case for creative freedom

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 19:29:00 GMT

Public Service Announcement Number Three:

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/187

7.4.2008, 19:29

Earthlings - Can you face the truth?

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 19:14:00 GMT

Public Service Announcement Number Two:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthlings_(documentary)

7.4.2008, 19:14

The Story of Stuff

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 19:12:00 GMT

Public Service Announcement Number One:

http://www.storyofstuff.com/

7.4.2008, 19:12

A Quick Start to Hello World

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 18:03:00 GMT

Panagiotis Astithas is setting out to give people a tour of Helma, starting with a quick start guide to the very first steps of getting up and running.

3.4.2008, 18:03

The Overlooked Power of Javascript

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 12:15:00 GMT

Glenn Vanderburg has put video and slides of "The Overlooked Power of Javascript" online, a presentation he gave last fall at JAOO in Aarhus, Denmark.

If you do not yet understand Javascript as a powerful programming language, this presentation will serve as a good introduction. It won't really make you see the power, but it will give you an idea where to go and look to find it.

3.4.2008, 12:15

Adobe's position on ES4 features, plus the Flex 3 SDK source code is now available under the MPL

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 20:42:00 GMT

Larsen Hansen and Jeff Dyer have issued a position statement outlining Adobe's point of view on how the ECMA TG1 should proceed towards ES4. Looks reasonable to me.

Plus the Flex 3 SDK source code is now available under the MPL and includes tools to disassemble .swf Flash files. It also contains the code for the actionscript compiler. Note that they messed up, however, and the compiler modules are missing in the released download package. They have since added the missing files to the subversion repository. So, you'll need to check it out from there.

26.2.2008, 20:42

Solar cell directly splits water for hydrogen

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 18:56:00 GMT

"Plants trees and algae do it. Even some bacteria and moss do it, but scientists have had a difficult time developing methods to turn sunlight into useful fuel. Now, Penn State researchers have a proof-of-concept device that can split water and produce recoverable hydrogen."

http://wattwatt.com/pulses/236/solar-cell-directly-splits-water-for-hydrogen/

26.2.2008, 18:56

Asynchronous Beer and Geeking and other opportunities to talk about Helma, Rhino and Javascript on the server-side

Tue, 05 Feb 2008 11:56:00 GMT

What's the one senseful thing to do if you live anywhere remotely near a pub called "The Rhino"? Exactly, you go there to talk about Rhino and the wonderful things you can do with it on the server-side thanks to Helma. For example, you can do this at The Rhino in Toronto, where Kristan "Krispy" Uccello initiated a meetup of Javascript geeks to take place every second Monday evening of the month.

The next Ajax Pub Nite is February 11, 2007 at 7pm in Toronto at The Rhino.

If you live at the other end of the world, I'm sure Maksim Lin's talk on Web Development with Helma would be another excellent opportunity for Rhino chatter. I assume that takes place somewhere in Melbourne, Australia, but the exact place and time is yet to be announced.

Then there would be another chance at the OpenExpo in Berne, Switzerland, where I'll be presenting the Helma project on the 12th and 13th of March 2008.

And if you are at Lift'08 this week, I won't mind talking about Helma there either :-)

5.2.2008, 11:56

Openmocha and Jhino updated to 0.8

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 01:05:00 GMT

New versions of the Openmocha and Jhino javascript server-side packages are available to download. They now contain basic support for fetchlets and many bug fixes:

Added support for fetchlets, javascript functions that are invoked on the client-side but run on the server-side.
added sendScript method, which renders a script to be sent to the clientside
turned the rhino.debug property for the exmapleapp back on, since the debugger is now working again
fixed render method to always return an xml object
fixed breadcrumbs to be properly combined in a div and changed stylesheet accordingly
changed initial registration process to be more distinct from the normal login/register experience
added experimental support for clientside and serverside filename extensions
changed Page to Scaffold in order to work around a problem where the page prototype overrides the one in an applications main repository if the jhino module is added via an app.addRepository call
added workaround for Helma bug #598, which causes onInit on the root object to fail
fixed lists to be contained in ul-element as intended and to use an items title and only fallback on the name if there is no title
updated rhino to latest cvs head with debugger related bug fixes
updated helma to current svn trunk and added fetchlet support

4.2.2008, 1:05

Even more Server-side Javascript with Jaxer

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 13:07:00 GMT

Coincidence has it that there is even more server-side Javascript news right now: Jaxer

It is basically Mozilla running behind Apache on the server-side, extended with the server-side functionality you would expect, like reading/writing files, db access and other external communication. But since the server-side runs inside a full fledged browser environment, with not only the DOM but CSS and all the client-side js functionality, including XMLHTTP requests and the whole bit, you can really work on both sides with less mental switching.

Take a look at the example John Resig mentions:

<html>
<head>
  <script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery.js" runat="both"></script>
  <script>
    jQuery(function($){
      $("form").submit(function(){
        save( $("textarea").val() );
        return false;
      });
    });
  </script>
  <script runat="server">
    function save( text ){
      Jaxer.File.write("tmp.txt", text);
    }
    save.proxy = true;
    
    function load(){
      $("textarea").val(
        Jaxer.File.exists("tmp.txt") ? Jaxer.File.read("tmp.txt") : "");
    }
  </script>
</head>
<body onserverload="load()">
  <form action="" method="post">
    <textarea></textarea>
    <input type="submit"/>
  </form>
</body>
</html>

Maybe sometimes it really helps to see both the client-side and server-sider code together like this, without the need to switch between separate files for views and controls. That's something to keep in mind for Jhino. With the older versions of Openmocha you always had the server-side and client-side code together on one page when using the web-based editor. With Jhino we currently lost that. So, this is one good argument to bring back a gui editor where one can see all the properties and behaviors of a Mocha object at a glance.

I'm not sure how often it will really make sense to run the code on both the client and server side. I hope we will come up with some interesting use cases for this, because the idea is intriguing!

23.1.2008, 13:07

e4xd and jhino - javascript server-side soft-coding

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 16:35:00 GMT

A new and experimental core for a complete rewrite of Openmocha.

The e4xd sub-project provides the javascript server-side for the Openmocha project, a javascript application server with a "soft-coding" framework.

The soft-coding allows modifications and development work from the "inside" of the running web application. The behavior of the web application can be changed in ways that closely relates to the hierarchical content structure of the resulting website, without the need to "hard-code" these changes in code files.

Every content object becomes "sovereign" and can define its own behavior, overriding what it would inherit from the hard-coded prototypes or from other soft-coded objects higher up in the content structure hierarchy.

The e4xd objectengine leverages naming conventions for hard-coded filenames and soft-coded object property names to overlay the hard-coded and soft-coded properties and methods and determine the behavior of an object at runtime.

Internally, these conventions follow the existing ones of the Helma framework, but expand that philosophy, adding additional conventions and accomodating to the needs of the soft-coding environment.

The jhino sub-project provides a base application scaffold for the soft-coding environment. It leverages the e4xd object engine and adds an additional layer of conventions, resulting in a basic scaffold for a working base application with CRUD type functionality and access control. Basically, jhino already provides a fully working soft-coding environment, but requires the standard Helma development tools such as the shell and inspector to do the actual "soft-coding".

The e4xd javascript server-side currently requires a patched version of Helma and Rhino. In the case of Rhino, e4xd depends on the JOMP patch and Helma needs to be modified to do the additional file suffix mapping required by e4xd.

Getting Started

You need to have Java installed
download Openmocha
extract the downloaded archive
execute ./start.sh (or start.bat on Windows)
create an admin account at http://localhost:8080/exampleapp/register
copy the authentication code to the server.properties file
login at http://localhost:8080/exampleapp/login

Prerequisites and System Requirements

To run OpenMocha a Java Virtual Machine 1.4 or better is required.

For FreeBSD and other operating systems with ports collection you may install a JRE or JDK from the ports collection. For Windows, Linux and Solaris you can get a Java runtime or development kit from http://java.sun.com/j2se/downloads/. If you are on Mac OS X then you already have a Java runtime that will work well with OpenMocha.

While you can integrate OpenMocha with other tools such as Apache and MySQL, you do not have to. OpenMocha is pre-configured to be deployed on its own and comes with a built-in object oriented database and web server.

Getting started with OpenMocha

On the e4xd.org site, you should be able to find a working build to download and simply start with ./start.sh

http://e4xd.org/

For FreeBSD, Linux, Solaris, Mac OS X and other Unix flavors, start the Helma framework by invoking ./start.sh from the command line. On Windows, invoke start.bat instead.

If the java command can not be found, make sure the JAVA_HOME environment variable is set to the location of your Java installation.

With Helma running, you should be able to connect using your browser and the URL http://127.0.0.1:8080/ or http://localhost:8080/

To initialize the setup, complete the user registration form at http://127.0.0.1:8080/exampleapp/register and follow the instructions to copy the security information into the server.properties file. You may then login to your new OpenMocha server via http://127.0.0.1:8080/exampleapp/login and start configuring and deploying your web applications.

Installing jhino modules in a existing Helma setup

In addition to the full openmocha build, there is also a build that contains only the jhino modules and patched jar files, in order to add jhino to your own helma install. You would need to replace the helma.jar and rhino.jar in your Helma install with the patched versions. The "objectengine" and "jhino" modules are expected to be placed in Helma's modules directory and the exampleapp would normally go into Helma's apps directory. You could then start the example app from your manage application or add it to the apps.properties file to have it start automatically.

http://localhost:8080/exampleapp

More info and help

Other than what you find on the (possibly not yet existing) e4xd.org website, the best places to get in touch are the openmocha mailing list and google group or the #helma@irc.freenode.net IRC channel.

Also, in case you are new to Helma, you of course need to add the helma.org website and mailing lists to the top of that list.

http://helma.org/

To get in touch with me directly, you should find additional contact information on the zumbrunn.com site.

Chris Zumbrunn <chris@zumbrunn.com> http://zumbrunn.com

22.1.2008, 16:35

Additional Filename Conventions

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 17:02:00 GMT

Over the past days, I did some experimenting with the JOMP patch for Rhino and the mapping of additional filename extensions to HopObject properties. I probably took it a bit to far and made the list of supported file suffixes to long, even introducing duplicates, but I would like to propose supporting additional filename based conventions for Helma 1.7.

Here is what I added for my experiments:

foo.macro --> becomes a hobj.foo_macro function with "params" as first argument
foo.get --> becomes a hobj.foo_action_get function
foo.post --> becomes a hobj.foo_action_post function
foo.put --> becomes a hobj.foo_action_put function
foo.delete --> becomes a hobj.foo_action_delete function
foo.e4x --> becomes a hobj.foo_e4x xml object
foo.json --> becomes a hobj.foo_json js object

Then I also needed a mapping that would not be generally useful, but only interesting in the context of my experiments:

foo.control --> becomes a hobj.foo_control function with "view" as first argument

And on top of all that, I added some duplicates:

foo.view --> the same as foo.skin
foo.action --> the same as foo.hac

The helma patch that resulted in:

name	type	size
helma.txt	text/plain	8648 bytes

Maybe instead of adding direct built-in support for additional filename conventions to Helma, we could instead add functionality that would make it easy to script/configure such additional conventions as needed.

I also added this proposal to the helma wiki, where you can leave comments.

21.1.2008, 17:02