Related
I am curious to know if there is any kind of programming library/framework for the C language for cross-platform programming of course. I mean there are already frameworks like Wxwidgets, Boost, Qt, U++ and etc for C++ available but I have not yet found any for C .
Updated Info:
We are trying to build an underlying Framework/library to be used in our project. We are going to eliminate the dotnet and instead provide a counterpart for those libraries which is fast and less demanding.
We will be working on a server/client based project, and thus the underlying services must be fast and also portable. GUI is not our priority now, but libraries providing threading capabilities is of importance to us.
And for the ANSI part, I think we are fine with that at the moment unless something changes that in the future.
if you write plain ANSI C, it should work on every POSIX system.
The most successful example of cross platform C library is standard C library itself (IMHO).
If you're looking for GUI toolkit GTK is the answer,
if you're looking for terminal UI, ncurses is pretty portable.
If you're looking for general use libraries, as long as they're written in ANSI C, should work almost everywhere, as long as it doesn't use system level APIs.
Can you just tell us, what kind of library/framework you are looking for ?
GTK+ is long established and actively maintained cross-platform C-only (or primarily) toolkit. You'll find not only on-line documentation but also books written about it. It is the framework backing up the GNOME project.
GTK+ is meant to build applications with UI, first of all. However, even if you don't need UI you'll find that some GTK+ components, namely GLib, provide general multiplatform support comparable with Qt. Actually, I needed a framework without UI at first and chose GLib over APR because I was able to find documentation and tutorials easier.
GTK+ was initially developed on UN*X an X-Windows which remains the platform where you can get it running the most easily. I wouldn't say that it is more difficult on Windows; it is just that you have more compiling environment options. I started with prepared GTK+ packages and MinGW but ended up integrating GTK+ with MSVC.
GTK+ exists for a long time and some people may find it old-school. On the other hand, it shows that it has proven to be stable and useful. There are also bindings for C++ and C#.
As with every big framework, the more you need from it the longer you will have to learn. But the other way round it works too; the more you learn the more you'll be able to do with it. Consistent coding style helps getting used to it.
--- Ferda
The only place where I found informations on G-WAN web server was the project web site and it looked very much like advertisement.
What I would really know is, for someone who is proficient with C, if it is as easy to use and extend that other architectures. For now I would mostly focus on scripting abilities.
Are C scripts on GWAN easy to write ?
Can you easily update and upload new C scripts to the server (say as easily than some PHP or Java pages on other architectures) ? Do you have to restart the server when doing so ?
Can you easily extend it with third party or existing C libraries ?
Any other feedback welcome.
Well, now G-WAN is available under Linux, I am using it for more than 6 months.
The C scripts are fully-ANSI C compatible so there is no difference for any seasonned C programmer.
To update them on the server, you can edit them directly in the /csp folder (remotely via SSH) or locally on a test machine (and copy them later): G-WAN reloads scripts on-the-fly when they have been changed on disk (no server stop required).
G-WAN C scripts can use any existing library (starting with all those under /usr/lib) without any configuration or interface: you just have to write a '#pragma link' followed by the name of the library at the top of your script.
What I found really useful is the ability to edit C scripts and refresh the view in the Internet browser to see how my code works.
If there is a compilation error, then G-WAN outputs the line in the source code (just like any C compiler).
But where it enters the extraordinary area, is when you have a C script crash: here also it gives you THE LINE NUMBER IN THE SOURCE CODE (with the faulty call and the backtrace).
Kind of black-magic when you are used to Apache modules.
My experience with G-WAN and its C scripts are:
The G-WAN community is very small. Questions you have are mostly answered by its single developer.
I consider the API not mature: it's not as "clean" as Java APIs.
The limitation, but at the same time the power, of C: it's a systems programming language. So writing application logic in it must be done carefully.
You generally need to be a good developer to get good results: if you do something wrong, the server crashes fast and hard (Unix-style).
I've written some scripts now, to try out G-WAN. Overall, it's been very "productive": not much bugs and it works if you follow the guidelines and don't want to do too much funky stuff you expect it to have, like mature web servers. However, I have got the feeling I'm reinventing the wheel a lot of times.
G-WAN also support scripts written in other programming languages (C++, Objective-C, Java, etc.) so you will benefit from whatever native libraries each language implements.
For C scripts, well, the /usr/lib directory lists more than 1,500 libraries that G-WAN can re-use with a simple #pragma link "library".
I found it neat to be able to write a Web application with a part in C, another in C++ and a third one in Java!
Benchmark shown how G-wan fare poorly at handling these tests.
http://joshitech.blogspot.sg/2012/04/performance-nginx-netty-cppcms.html
I have been using G-Wan for about two years. I consider it highly stable and production ready for static files. I have a number of static sites running for over a year with no issues.
I have built some small scale dynamic sites in C with it as demos/test projects. A bittorrent tracker and a real time analytics platform both using the KV Store for data backing.
In my view building large scale dynamic sites in G-Wan is possible but only with a significant investment in development and support. G-Wan is better suited to building robust highly scalable "enterprise grade" applications than tossing something together over a weekend.
I use G-Wan for a CMS http://solicms.com but for now, I use Ruby as primary language.
I have used G-wan for some preliminary testing and it does benchmark well. I have found a few points of concern that make it so that I will not likely use it for any of my projects. I have found that it seems to cache responses for about 0.5secs to speedup the responses/second and I can't have only some of the responses hitting the application code. Also the key/value store is great for cache and temporary data storage but I'm not sure how well it will work as a real back-end storage method.
I usually write web apps in PHP, Ruby or Perl. I am starting the study of Scheme and I want to try some web project with this language. But I can't find what is the best environment for this.
I am looking for the following features:
A simple way of get the request parameters (something like: get-get #key, get-post #key, get-cookie #key).
Mysql access.
HTML Form generators, processing, validators, etc.
Helpers for filter user input data (something like htmlentities, escape variables for put in queries, etc).
FLOSS.
And GNU/Linux friendly.
So, thanks in advance to all replies.
Racket has everything that you need. See the Racket web server tutorial and then the documentation. The web server has been around for a while, and it has a lot of features. Probably the only thing that is not included is a mysql interface, but that exists as a package on PLaneT (Racket package distribution tool).
UPDATE: Racket now comes with DB support, works with several DBs including mysql.
You may want to have a look at Clojure:
Clojure is a dynamic programming language that targets the Java Virtual Machine. [...] Clojure provides easy access to the Java frameworks, with optional type hints and type inference, to ensure that calls to Java can avoid reflection.
Clojure is a dialect of Lisp, and shares with Lisp the code-as-data philosophy and a powerful macro system.
Interop with Java is straightforward in Clojure, so you can re-use any existing Java libraries as you need. I'm sure there are plenty that are useful for web development.
clojure-contrib has an SQL API, and there is ClojureQL as well, which should cover your DB access needs.
There is a web framework for Clojure called Compojure under development. There may be others, too.
Clojure's source is available on github under the EPL. Getting it running on Linux is easy; I just clone the git repos and run ant.
You can do web development with guile scheme. Its standard library includes the (sxml simple) module that is very useful for html generation, manipulation, and parsing. The guile-www library adds support for http, cgi, etc. The guile-dbi library provides access to MySQL and other databases. With these building blocks, you can implement everything from simple cgi scripts to web applications with their own HTTP server.
Try Weblocks, a Common Lisp web framework:
http://weblocks.viridian-project.de/
I've written a pretty extensive tutorial/ebook on the topic: http://lispwebtales.ppenev.com/
Quick summary:
It uses Common Lisp
It uses the Restas framework
It has examples for pretty much most of basic web development, including DB access, authentication, HTML generation and templating.
Since the Restas documentation is pretty much out of date, my tutorial is the closest thing to up to date docs.
Shows a few of the more advanced features, like policies, which allow you to write pluggable interfaces, for instance you can write a data store layer, and write back-ends for different storage mechanisms with relative ease, the module system which allows you to write reusable components, like auth frameworks and things like that.
It covers things like installing lisp, setting up the ASDF build system and the quicklisp package manager etc.
It's free online, and as soon as I finish it it will be free on leanpub as well. The source is on https://github.com/pvlpenev/lispwebtales under a CC license, the source code is MIT. Not all of it is published yet, and I'm in the process of revising.
This may be what you are looking for.
http://www.plt-scheme.org/
http://docs.plt-scheme.org/web-server/index.html
http://common-lisp.net/project/cl-weblocks/
If you are interested in Common Lisp to be exact and do not want to go the weblocks route I would recommend the following setup:
Use SBCL on Linux but with multiple thread support
Use Hunchentoot as a web server which will provide you with all the server processing required including sessions and cookies
Use ClSql to communicate with MySql it has ample documentation and is very stable.
For the HTMl generation you can use Dr Edi Weitz Cl-WHO (very well documented).
Note all the above are under GPL or similar license (one that works more for lisp programs)
Gambit Scheme has its own solution to web apps as well. It uses the Spork framework, based o the Black Hole module system (both by Per Eckerdal).
Andrew Whaley has an initial tutorial on how to get Gambit, Black Hole and Spork running a web app under Apache using mod_proxy. You might want to take a look at that.
On a (possibly) related note, Gambit will also compile your stuff to C and then to an executable, if you feel so inclined.
Paul Graham (and friends) made a lisp dialect specifically for writing basic web applications. It's called Arc, and you can get it at arclanguage.org.
It's probably not suited for really big complex websites and I'm not sure what state it's database support is at but Paul Graham knows how to write web applications in lisp, so Arc will make the HTTP/HTML part easy for you while you spend most of your brain cycles learning the lisp way.
Weblocks is nice tool for building web apps in Common Lisp, but a bit too heavy-weight for me.
We use the following stack:
OpenMCL (open source Lisp, very nice)
Portable Allegroserve (web server, HTML generator)
Our own Rails-like tools for doing Ajaxy stuff (update: this has now been open sourced as WuWei)
A variety of CL libraries like cl-json, cl-smtp, md5
I use my own, customized version of Scheme, derived from MzScheme. It has a new, simple web-application framework, a built-in web-server (not the one that comes with MzScheme) and ODBC libraries. (http://spark-scheme.wikispot.org/Web_applications). The documentation may not be exhaustive, as this is more of a personal tool. But there are lots of sample code in the code repository.
Clojure is a Lisp dialect which may interest you. At this point there's a pretty decent web development stack. I can recommend a few things:
The leiningen dependency manager which makes is really easy to install and manage libraries that you're using. Pretty nice set of plugins for it too. There's even a plugin for Clojurescript, which is a language based on Clojure that compiles to Javascript.
The ring HTTP server abstraction. Its used in most actual web frameworks. Its a pretty good idea to learn that first before jumping into an actual framework.
hiccup is a HTML dsl/templating language written in Clojure. Its very expressive! Reminds me a bit of Jade, in a sense.
composure would have to be the most popular web framework for Clojure. Its essentially a routing library like express.js.
Let's see what can be done with Common Lisp.
The state of the Common Lisp ecosystem (2015) and the Awesome Common Lisp list show us a couple of modern frameworks (Caveman, Lucerne, all built on the new Clack web application server, an interface for Hunchentoot and other servers). Let's discuss with our own findings.
update 2019: there's a new tutorial on the Common Lisp Cookbook: https://lispcookbook.github.io/cl-cookbook/web.html It covers routing, template engines, building self-contained binaries, deployment, etc.
update: a bit later, I found out Snooze, by the creator of Sly or Emacs' Yasnippet, and had a much better impression than say Caveman. Declaring endpoints is just like declaring functions, so some things that were tedious in Caveman are obvious in Snooze, like accessing the url parameters. I don't have much experience with it but I recommend checking it out.
update june 2018: also don't miss the ongoing rewrite of Weblocks, it's going to be huge ! :D http://40ants.com/weblocks/quickstart.html Weblocks allows to build dynamic webapps, without a line of Javascript, without separating the back and front. It is components-based, like React but server-side. It's very alpha as of writing (june 2018), but in progress, and it's working, I have a couple simple web apps working.
A simple way of get the request parameters (something like: get-get #key, get-post #key, get-cookie #key).
I found easier the Lucerne way, it iss as simple as a with-params macro (real world example):
#route app (:post "/tweet")
(defview tweet ()
(if (lucerne-auth:logged-in-p)
(let ((user (current-user)))
(with-params (tweet)
(utweet.models:tweet user tweet))
(redirect "/"))
(render-template (+index+)
:error "You are not logged in.")))
Caveman's way has been less clear to me.
Mysql access
Caveman advertises database integration (with Fukamachi's Datafly and sxql).
You can just use clsql or the Mito ORM: https://lispcookbook.github.io/cl-cookbook/databases.html
HTML Form generators, processing, validators, etc.
I don't know if there are form generators out there. edit: there are: cl-forms and formlets, or again 1forms, working with Caveman2.
Caveman does not have one (issue raised in 2011).
Helpers for filter user input data (something like htmlentities, escape variables for put in queries, etc).
Ratify is an input validation library, not integrated into a framework though.
FLOSS and GNU/Linux friendly: ✓
Other web stuff
Speaking about web, there are other nice libraries in CL land:
web servers: Woo is a fast HTTP server, faster than Nodejs (beware of charts…), wookie is an async http server,
Dexador is an HTTP client
Plump, lquery and CLSS make it easy to parse html and query the DOM.
cl-bootstrap offers twitter-bootstrap shortcuts for the cl-who templating engine (which kind of replaces Jade/Pug, even though we have usual templates too).
Ajax in Lisp
(remember, with Weblocks, see above, we might not need those)
With ParenScript, we can write JavaScript in Common Lisp, without living our usual workflow, and we can thus use the fetch web API to write Ajax calls.
Clojure would be perfect for this. With some very short, clean code, you can implement some very complex applications, such as blogs or forums.
You might want to consider the awful web framework for Chicken Scheme.
Natively supports PostgreSQL and SQLite
Built-in easy support for sessions
Shortcuts for some webdev idioms, like the (ajax) procedure
Your app can be easily compiled to a static executable (via csc -static) for easier deployment
The collection of all chicken libraries (eggs) isn't as versatile as in some other programming languages, but isn't awful either
So, there are several languages which will allow you to create a website, as long as you configure the server(s) well enough.
To my knowledge, there is:
PHP
ASP.NET
Ruby(on rails, what is
that all about?)
And thusly, my knowledge is limited. Ruby and ASP, I've only heard of, never worked with. If there are other languages, I suppose they have some way to make files containing the needed html. It would then suffice to add a line to the Apache config to associate the file-extension.
And if other languages: are there any notable characteristics about the one(s) you mention?
ANY language can be use to make a dynamic website - you could do it in COBOL or FORTRAN if you were twisted enough. Back in the olden days (about 10 years ago) most dynamic websites were done with CGI scripts - all you needed was a program that could read data from standard input and write data (usually HTML) to standard output.
Most modern languages have libraries and frameworks to make it easier. As well as the languages you have already mentioned, Java, C# and Python are probably the most common in use today.
Typically a web framework will have:
a way of mapping URLs to a class or function to handle the request
a mechanism for extracting data from a request and converting it into an easy to use form
a template system to easily create HTML by filling in the blanks
an easy way to access a database, such as an ORM
mechanisms to handle caching, redirections, errors etc
You can find a comparison of popular web frameworks on wikipedia.
How can you forget Java ? :)
Python
It runs on Windows, Linux/Unix, Mac OS X, and has been ported to the Java and .NET virtual machines.
Python is a perfect scripting language for web applications, e.g. via mod_python for the Apache web server. With Web Server Gateway Interface a standard API has been developed to facilitate these applications. Web application frameworks or application servers like Django, Pylons, TurboGears, web2py and Zope support developers in the design and maintenance of complex applications. Around libraries like NumPy, Scipy and Matplotlib, Python is a standard in scientific computing.
Among the users of Python are YouTube and the original BitTorrent client. Large organizations that make use of Python include Google, Yahoo!, CERN, NASA,and ITA.
This could be for your interest.
Virtually thru CGI all programming languages that produce output may use for web page generation.
Basically, you can use any language (if you are hosting your own server)
Very closely related and very interesting is this article where LISP has been used to build a very succesfull website.
Python has a 3rd party module CherryPy which can be used with or without a http server.
Amongst others: Erlang (YAWS, Mochiweb), Python
JSP has the advantage that it automatically wraps your code in a servlet, compiles that to bytecodes, then uses the just-in-time Java compiler to recompile critical sections into native object code. Not aware of any alternative which allows optimizes your work automatically in this way.
Also allows you to develop and deploy on any combination of Windows, Mac OS X, or Linux.
If you'd like to choose one for the beginning, you should check out PHP first. It gives you the basic clues about how dynamic sites work in general.
After you've become familiar with the basics, I recommend ASP.NET.
Fist off, you should know that ASP.NET is a technology and not a language. (It actually supports any language that can be used on the .NET platform.) Also it is not to be confused with classic ASP. (The old ASP was much more like PHP.)
ASP.NET is very easy to begin with, and after you have some clues about its concepts, you can always dig deeper and customize everything in it. The http://asp.net site is a very good starting point, if you are to learn it. I think it is really worth the effort, because even if you choose not to stick to it, it will give you some interesting ideas and concepts.
I tell you its most important advantages:
The code is compiled (and NOT interpreted like PHP), and it has a very good performance. (In a performace comparsion, it is 10-15 times faster. http://www.misfitgeek.com/pages/Perf_Stat_0809.htm)
It can be run on Windows without effort, and on Linux / Mac / etc using the Mono project.
It implements the Separation of Concerns principle very well.
It has most of the general functionality you'll need built-in. (Such as membership, roles, database management, and so on.)
Every time I see Ruby or Python discussed in the context of web development, it's always with a framework (Rails for Ruby, Django for Python). Are these frameworks necessary? If not, is there a reason why these languages are often used within a framework, while Perl and PHP are not?
I can only speak towards Ruby - but, no, you don't need a framework to run Ruby based pages on the web. You do need a ruby enabled server, such as Apache running eruby/erb. But, once you do, you can create .rhtml files just like RoR, where it processes the inline ruby code.
The short answer is no, they are not necessary. In ruby you have .erb templates that can be used in a similar way as you use PHP pages. You can write a site in ruby or Python using several technologies (Rails-like frameworks, Templates or even talking directly with the HTTP library and building the page CGI-style).
Web frameworks like Python's Django or Ruby's Rails (there are many) just raise the level of abstraction from the PHP's or ASP's, and automate several process (like login, database interaction, REST API's) which is always a good thing.
"Need" is a strong word. You can certainly write Python without one, but I wouldn't want to.
Python wasn't designed (like PHP was, for example) as a direct web scripting language, so common web-ish things like connecting to databases isn't native, and frameworks are handy.
EDIT: mod_python exists for Apache, so if you're merely looking to write some scripts, then Python doesn't need a framework. If you want to build an entire site, I'd recommend using one.
From a Pythonic point of view, you'd absolutely want to use one of the frameworks. Yes, it might be possible to write a web app without them, but it's not going to be pretty. Here's a few things you'll (probably) end up writing from scratch:
Templating: unless you're writing a really really quick hack, you don't want to be generating all of your HTML within your Python code -- this is a really poor design that becomes a maintainability nightmare.
URL Processing: splitting a URL and identifying which code to run isn't a trivial task. Django (for example) provides a fantastic mechanism to map from a set of regular expressions to a set of view functions.
Authentication: rolling your own login/logout/session management code is a pain, especially when there's already pre-written (and tested) code available
Error handling: frameworks already have a good mechanism in place to a) help you debug your app, and b) help redirect to proper 404 and 500 pages.
To add to this, all of the framework libraries are all heavily tested (and fire tested). Additionally, there are communities of people who are developing using the same code base, so if you have any questions, you can probably find help.
In summary, you don't have to, but unless your project is "a new web framework", you're probably better off using one of the existing ones instead.
Framework? Heck, you don't even need a web server if you're using Python, you can make one in around three lines of code.
As to the why:
The most plausible thing I can think of is that Perl and PHP were developed before the notion of using frameworks for web apps became popular. Hence, the "old" way of doing things has stuck around in those cultures. Ruby and Python became popular after frameworks became popular, hence they developed together. If your language has a good framework (or more than one) that's well supported by the community, there's not much reason to try to write a Web App without one.
A framework isn't necessary per se, but it can certainly speed development and help you write "better" code. In PHP, there are definitely frameworks that get used like CakePHP, and in Perl there are many as well like Mason and Catalyst.
The frameworks aren't necessary. However, a lot of developers think frameworks ease development by automating a lot of things. For example, Django will create a production-ready backend for you based on your database structure. It also has lets you incorporate various plugins if you choose. I don't know too much about Rails or Perl frameworks, but PHP frameworks such as Zend, Symfony, Code Igniter, CakePHP, etc are used widely.
Where I work at we rolled our own PHP framework.
Are these frameworks necessary?
No. They, like any 'framework', are simply for speeding up development time and making the programmer's job easier.
If not, is there a reason why these languages are often used within a framework, while Perl and PHP are not?
PHP and Perl were popular languages for building web sites well before the idea of using frameworks was. Frameworks like Rails are what gave Ruby it's following. I'm not sure that Python or Ruby were that common as web languages before they were backed by frameworks.
These days, even PHP/Perl web developement should be backed by a framework (of which there are now many).
By no means are those development frameworks required. But as with most development environments, your productivity will increase exponentially if you have a supported framework to reference and build your applications on. It also decreases the training needed to bring others up to speed on your applications if they already have a core understanding of the framework that you use.
For python, the answer is No you don't have to. You can write python directly behind your web server very easily, take a look at mod_python for how to do it.
A lot of people like frameworks because they supply a lot of the boilerplate code in a reliable form so you don't have to write it yourself. But, like any code project, you should choose the tools and frameworks on their merit for your problem.
You can certainly write CGI scripts in either language and do things "raw".
The frameworks (ideally) save the trouble of writing a pile of code for things that other people have already handled (session handling, etc.).
The decision probably comes down to what you need to do. If the framework has the features you need, why not use it. If the framework is going to require extensive modifications, it might be easier to roll your own stuff. Or check out a different framework.
The python library has numerous modules for doing cgi, parsing html, cookies, WSGI, etc:
http://docs.python.org/library/index.html
PHP has a lot of frameworks. Probably more then most. In Ruby most use Rails so thats what you hear, and Django for Python is mentioned more then not.
But with PHP you have many to choose from.
List of web application frameworks
Any language that can "print" can be used to generate web pages, but frameworks handle a lot of the HTML generation for you. They let you concentrate more on the content and less on the details of coding the raw HTML.