Re: GSWeb/GDL2 Status (was: Objective-C 2.0 and other new features in Leopard)

[David Chisnall]

On 21 Nov 2007, at 11:11, David Ayers wrote:

> > > - There is no tutorial at all.  The documentation (and I use the  
> > > term
> > > in the loosest possible sense) says 'read the Apple WO4.5 docs.'
> > > Unfortunately, these all talk about using WebObject Builder, a GUI
> > > tool that doesn't appear to have a GSWeb analogue (maybe there is  
> > > one,
> > > but nothing I could find told me about it) and so are completely
> > > useless.
>
> Indeed we could use a tutorial... I think Dave W. started with:
>
> http://wiki.gnustep.org/index.php/Creating_A_Simple_GSWeb_Application
>
> but got side tracked.

It would be really great if someone could finish this.

> > > - The example code is confusing at best.  It does weird things like
> > > implement classes which contain nothing but methods which do nothing
> > > except call the superclass implementation.  Presumably this is done
> > > for a reason, but I have no idea what it could possibly be.
>
> Maybe you could specify... yes we some concrete subclasses (like the
> class specified as WOApplication and WOSession subclasses to
> instantiate) that rely on the superclasses default implementations,  
> but
> where are we implementing methods merely to call super?
>
> Ahh Application.m in WebBookStore1 ...OK yes that was intended so that
> you see the development of that method to subsequent examples that I
> never got to implement.  My bad.

It seems this is the only place; maybe it was the first class I looked  
in, which is what left me with this impression.  If this example were  
documented somewhere, then it would be a lot easier to understand.

> > > - The web page hasn't been updated in some years.  Checking again  
> > > now,
> > > it appears that the site now redirects to an almost content-free  
> > > page
> > > on the GNUstep Wiki.
> > >
> > > The documentation for Seaside is pretty lacking, but I could make a
> > > simple web app using it quite quickly and then play at extending it.
> > > With GNUstepWeb I simply have no idea where to begin.  Seaside also
> > > has some really nice integration with Scriptaculous, which makes it
> > > easy to produce shiny-looking web apps.  Is there any equivalent for
> > > GSWeb?  I would love to be able to recycle model objects written for
> > > GNUstep and just bolt on a new GUI to turn a desktop app into a web
> > > app, and this could be a killer app for GNUstep, but after reading
> > > what passes for documentation with GNUstepWeb I still have no idea  
> > > if
> > > this is possible.
>
> As for creating an GDL2 Based framework to be used with a
> gui/EOInterface Application and a GSWeb simultaneously, I'd say it's
> possible but not trivial.
>
> If your looking for simple IDE to support that kind of integration  
> in a
> straight forward simple way, then, no I don't see the current  
> developers
> supplying that anytime soon.

I think you are misunderstanding the question.  I have an GNUstep  
application which follows the MVC abstraction.  Most of the code is in  
the model layer (which is actually already separated into a framework  
for later reuse).  The controllers are thin wrappers which translate  
things like drag and drop events and datasource requests into calls to  
the model, and the views are all GNUstep objects in gorm/nib files.

It seems like I ought to be able to create a GSWeb application which  
uses the HTML pages instead of nib files, some new code for the  
controllers and the same model, but I have no idea where to start.  I  
am not particularly interested in GDL2, since the application is not  
database driven and I have an easier-to-use persistence framework in  
the form of EtoileSerialise for things that don't need to be stored in  
a database.

I could create a fastcgi app using just Foundation that would work,  
but it seems like GSWeb should be able to simplify this dramatically.

Now that the web page has been replaced by a singularly uninformative  
wiki page, I don't even know how I'd go about running a GSWeb app.   
Does it actually require Apache?  I use Lighttpd, so do I need to  
install Apache and run it behind lighttpd?  Or can a GSWeb app run as  
a fastcgi program?

> That said, I do believe that it can be done but will probably require
> another abstraction framework.  Something Renaissance-like or  
> something
> using Renaissance with main purpose of generating or parsing  
> Renaissance
> XML and creating GSWeb html/wod [potentially on the fly].  But that's
> pretty much a pipe dream right now.

I don't even think this is a good idea.  Web applications may be a bit  
like desktop ones, but they are sufficiently different that they  
should merit a custom UI.  Attempting to use the same UI for a desktop  
and web app is likely to be ugly.

David