Frameworks for hacklang? - frameworks

Hacklang may still be relatively new but are there any frameworks (MVC for instance) that are well-documented for it ? I've stumbled accross Fastuc or Hack-mvc but they don't seem ready yet and the documentation is quite scarce;
Any thoughts ?
Thanks a lot !

First, remember that, since Hack is backwards-compatible with PHP, any PHP framework can be used in Hack. You won't get the benefits of typing code interacting with that framework of course, but the type system was carefully designed to deal with missing type information ("gradual typing"). So if you want to use Laravel, Symfony, etc, you can do so perfectly fine while still writing the code using them in Hack.
As for pure Hack frameworks, you can look at the Hack language section of the HHVM blog which contains a few "community roundups". One of the most active today is probably Titon, though I've not used it myself and so can't say how complete or ready to use it is.

At this point in time PHP frameworks seem to be dropping Hack support and Hack seems to be going down the path of truly diverging from PHP so existing PHP frameworks are no longer appropriate for use under Hack.
Titon seems to be the most recently modified Hack framework, though it was last touched in 2015. None of its forked seemed to have been touched too much more recently either.
It looks there are currently no actively maintained Hack frameworks, and whether any will appear unfortunately remains to be seen given the apparent momentum of PHP 7.

Related

Silex vs SLIM PHP Framework

We have narrow down our search between Silex and Slim PHP frameworks for routing our REST APIs on our Apache/PHP/MySQL Server.
Both seem to have good reviews. Silex has probably a bigger community because it came from Symfony. But the documentation seems to be better in Slim.
What do you guys suggests? Any real world experience from production environments?
Sathish
I had the same choice to make, and I choose Silex, here is why :
Silex seems to have a bigger community than Slim, maybe it's just my point of view
It's based on Symfony components, so with a bit of reflection, you can use tips and workarounds which work for Symfony and apply them to Silex.
As it's based on Symfony it has a better integration with other bundle (for example Twig, which is for me necessary)
This Symfony base also garanty that it will be more "Long Term Support" that Slim, which is independent.
To conclude, the main argument is that is based on Symfony which has many advantage.
The Symfony Debug tools are the best thing on earth !!
Now I have two sites made with Twig and I'm really happy !
You can also see that, it's a technical comparison of these both frameworks :
https://michalzuber.wordpress.com/2015/04/02/silex-vs-slim-php-microframework-comparison/
Slim 3 is very light weight and well suited to APIs.
You can optionally inject a container (Pimple by default but any Container-Interop will work) when constructing your Slim app. The Silex app extends Pimple so is a container.
Require slim/twig-view if you need Twig.
Slim's Request and Response support PSR-7 HTTP message implementation.
On January 12th 2018, Fabien Potencier, main author of this micro-framework, wrote that Sensiolabs stops supporting Silex.
https://symfony.com/blog/the-end-of-silex
Quote from Silex official site:
Silex is in maintenance mode. Ends of life is set to June 2018. Use Symfony 4 instead. Read more on Symfony's blog.
Slim is better if you want to create apis as its light and fast. Hence slim provides you the DI and routes it is much more flexible to use your own libraries or plugins from laravel or symfony or any third party.
For example you can use sentinel from laravel for auth
TL;DR Choose Slim 4. "At its core, Slim is a dispatcher that receives an HTTP request, invokes an appropriate callback routine, and returns an HTTP response. That’s it.". That should be it.
Late to the party but nonetheless here's my 2 cents(!) on the topic especially for future-googlers about this topic (even though Silex has reached end of life); I'd go for Slim. Which I already did on my previous 2 projects and it never let me down. Before the "here's why" part I'd like to share my background in a nutshell; I've worked with CakePHP and Laravel (especially >=5.4, <5.8) (and also with Lumen) years and years ago, right before I introduced myself with Node.js. Since then almost all my work runs on Node.js in the cloud. Now there's Golang on the table... but that's another story. Due to the requirements (or I should say constraints) of the aforementioned 2 projects, I have to write PHP. Since all those years past with Node.js I suddenly realized that I've forgotten about PHP almost completely. But there were 2 things I remember crystal clear; I've suffered. A lot. Because of those frameworks.
Don't get me wrong former is the eldest one and the latter is the hipster of the pack, I respect them, their authors and their community. Everything has a reason to exist. But one is behemoth and the other one is magical (both not in a good way - I mean did you ever try to debug the Laravel with those facades and static methods and stuff?). OK I hear you, they are frameworks and they should do things for you (have you heard of Hollywood Principle), not everything for you. What this does mean to me is that they always whispering to your ear "our way or highway" (sometimes even yells). "Surely you can do this (say push a job to a queue, query your database, send email, etc.) but first do this, and then that" (maybe couple of more steps but this is not that bad). The bad thing about this is (not accusing anyone) I don't know what do they mean to the framework. They must do something meaningful, obviously though, I don't know what it is. Should I know? Yes, of course. I'm writing this application with that framework for God sake, I should know what it does. Version X was easy to grasp, but what about version Y, Z, T... Have you seen the version dropdown on the Laravel's documentation site? I took those steps because I've been told so. Again that's OK, fair is fair, those steps makes me achieve something far greater. But gradually I'm in their (respective authors') control. After that, even small change takes lots of searches on SO, GitHub issues, Google... Sometimes ends up with a success and most of the times don't. Either way the war against the framework must be declared.
In my point of view this is not how an open-source framework should be. I am vendor locked-in in some sense. Maybe I want to adhere PSR (not that because I'm an advisor recommendation freak, because PHP-FIG is a well-known group with standards almost for every aspect of the language - this is important; for the language, not for any framework). Let me ask you something; do you use Composer? If so why? Because it's standard (I'm not sure if it is)? Because everyone uses it? Because the needed package of yours recommends this way of installing? Actually the answer doesn't all that matter, at the end of the day you use it. And you can use it practically for every PHP framework/project. The Composer requires you to have PHP installed on the system at bare-minimum and coincidentally it's the only requirement. This is freedom, and I want that. I want to pick and choose a router or a container for my taste. Today this package, later something else.
Slim gave me that freedom, especially on version 4. It's community is small, it's foreseeable; it does so much less than the other, full-blown frameworks. Actually it's a micro-framework (although I wrote an MVC application and REST API server with it). Other packages' communities are what matters right now. You need a container, composer require php-di/php-di. Now think about it's community, since "your" application (hence the framework) is a part of it. You have a problem? Ask for help specifically for that package. Maybe someone using another framework (or someone using no framework at all - if there's any left nowadays) might help you with your problem. So you've gone framework-agnostic thanks to your setup. Don't you like PHP DI, well find yourself another PSR-11 compliant package. Same applies for almost every part of Slim - except the router (Nikic's FastRouter should ring a bell), although it's already a foundation for other routers I see so far.
Before I finish I should say that too, Lumen and Silex has big brothers. I've been through a handful of frustration moments with Lumen; when I say "I can't do [fill here with a not-so-common problem] with Lumen version X.Y" they say "Use Laravel instead, it is really easy to upgrade". It should be for God sake! They share the same blood. I wasn't ask for that. If I were like to use Laravel I would choose it in the beginning and not use the Lumen in the first place. There were some reasons I did choose Lumen, like there were some reasons the author write it too (which I don't know why, but still...). Lumen should be a lighter weight, micro-framework alternative to Laravel, not a stepping stone.
Choosing Slim has it's disadvantages too but I think it's about the perception. I want to know what's happening on my application given the circumstances. Isn't reasoning about actually that? Even if I'm going to this rocky road at least I know at the end my application will do exactly as I commanded, nothing more nothing less.
Thank you for your time and please excuse me for formatting.
The fact that Silex didn't support PSR-7 (at the time of writing this) a huge let down. It has so many good point already mentioned above. There is a plugin/extension that let you do that, however I don't see the point in adding this overhead when you are looking for a lightweight framework

iOS iPhone - is there a 2013 equivalent of Three20, a framework for building apps?

I know that TTT(Three20)framework provides quite a lot of customization of default iOS elements, however, it appears that the framework has not been updated in over a year, and a lot of tutorials on the framework I see are dated 2011 or so.
Is there some newer, better framework that industry apps are using? Or is Three20 still relevant?
As you correctly stated, Three20 is no longer used (it was too heavy, and you never got to use it entirely anyways).
Nowadays, I think people tend to follow a "componentization" (sorry for the lingo) approach, which means you just put in your project stuff that you know you'll be using that can be easily added/removed. This way, if you change your mind about using a certain component, you can discard it at any time and replace it with another one almost in a couple of minutes.
To accomplish this, I'd have a look to cocoacontrols and cocoapods.
The first one to browse across all sorts of visual and non-visual components, 3rd party libraries and so on. The second one to actually import those into your project with minimal hassle.
This way your project will only include classes that will be used, and won't be that difficult to set up.
If you're looking for a magic toolbox that does it all, I'm afraid it doesn't exist (and I don't think it ever did).

Has anyone had much success recently using the Cappuccino Framework?

I'm just creating my first project in Cappuccino without a lot of success. Looking for examples and documentation, there isn't a lot out there...
The differences from real Objective-C and the lack of libraries mean you cannot easily convert code directly from say a OS X desktop app. to Cappuccino.
As an experienced PHP, and RoR developer (besides the Java, VB, VC.....) I can't quite see the logic of abstracting/wrapping JavaScript in another language.
Any comments or suggestions for a more efficient framework?
If you have specific questions that can't be answered in the IRC channel (it just depends who's in there) you should post the question to the mailing list and someone will help you.
As for why you would want objective-j I'll point you to this blog post which contains several reasons why objj exists. http://cappuccino.org/discuss/2008/12/08/on-leaky-abstractions-and-objective-j/
I have converted several Objective-C classes nearly line for line into Cappuccino. Mostly it's a matter of changing NS to CP and changing pointers to non-pointers. What differences between Objective-C are you thinking about?
Indeed you could even take your existing XIB files from your Cocoa desktop app and convert them to Cappuccino using nib2cib. Here's how to work with Interface Builder using XCode 4: http://groups.google.com/group/objectivej/browse_thread/thread/786331dbcbc9c7b1.
I also recently started a project in Cappuccino and what I could say is: definitely it worth it. I'm used with javascript as well as (but less) cocoa (which helps). In short, the javascript is very fine, probably one of my favorite language because of it's flexibility. But it does lack of structure. For example there is no class in javascript and you have to trick with object inheritances, prototyping and so on. By using the Cappuccino framework at first you have all those very convenient facilities but also you do not reinvent the wheel each time. This is cross browser standardized so that you only have to focus on your code and not on the IE whims. As it is based on cocoa, cappuccino also comes with the MCV scheme in mind which again let you structure your project in an efficient way.
Ok you probably already know all this. What I could tell now about the learning curve is that I had to find the right tools to really get in. i.e.Installing cappuccino (sudo Starter/bootstrap.sh), creating a simple nib application (capp gen -t NibApplication YourApplication) then using xcodecapp-cocoa to listen, convert and open the project into Xcode what probably the hardest part of this learning curve to me…
Now if you are still not satisfied with cappuccino, I can only suggest to look at another framework like http://javascriptmvc.com/ , www.grooveshark.com used it to do their amazing webapp-site but I personally would never go back to html for building a web application. (conversely I would not use cappuccino for a webpage neither, "The cobbler should stick to his last")
I began writing cappuccino a couple of months ago and had a lot of difficulty when it came to setting up the proper development environment. I also had numerous problems writing working client server code that worked well.
I eventually broke through and started doing better with Cappuccino and then I found these video tutorials that would have helped so much earlier on. They did cost me $30 but I really wished I had watched these at the start because they help you get set up properly as a developer and get you started on the right learning curve.
I actually discovered these videos when using Cappuccinos IRC which has helped me a couple of times when I couldn't find an answer.
Info on the videos here: http://cappuccino.org/discuss/2011/10/19/cappuccino-training-course-ideveloper-tv/

Are there any medium-sized web applications built with CGI::Application that are open-sourced?

I learn best by taking apart something that already does something and figuring out why decisions were made in which manner.
Recently I've started working with Perl's CGI::Application framework, but found i don't really get along well with the documentation (too little information on how to best structure an application with it). There are some examples of small applications on the cgi-app website, but they're mostly structured such that they demonstrate a small feature, but contain mostly of code that one would never actually use in production. Other examples are massively huge and would require way too much time to dig through. And most of them are just stuff that runs on cgiapp, but isn't open source.
As such I am looking for something that has most base functionality like user logins, db access, some processing, etc.; is actually used for something but not so big that it would take hours to even set them up.
Does something like that exist or am i out of luck?
CGI::Application tends to be used for small, rapid-development web applications (much like Dancer, Maypole and other related modules). I haven't seen any real examples of open-source web apps built on top of it, though perhaps I'm not looking hard enough.
You could look at Catalyst. The wiki has a list of Catalyst-powered software and there are a large number of apps there - poke around, see if you like the look of the framework. Of this, this is Perl, so some of those apps will be using Template::Toolkit, some will use HTML::Mason... still, you'll get a general idea.
Try looking at Miril CMS. Although I don't know in which state it is.
I am the same with code, and had the same request. When I did not find a solution I created my own. which is https://github.com/alexxroche/Notice
I hope that it is a good solution to this request.
Notice demonstrates:
CGI::Application
CGI::Application::Plugin::ConfigAuto
CGI::Application::Plugin::AutoRunmode
CGI::Application::Plugin::DBH
CGI::Application::Plugin::Session;
CGI::Application::Plugin::Authentication
CGI::Application::Plugin::Redirect
CGI::Application::Plugin::DBIC::Schema
CGI::Application::Plugin::Forward
CGI::Application::Plugin::TT
It comes with an example mysql schema, but because of DBIC::Schema it can be used with PostgreSQL, (or anything else that DBIx::Class supports.)
I use Notice in all of my real life applications since 2007. The version in github is everything except the branding and the content.
Check out the Krang CMS.

What inherited code has impressed or inspired you?

I've heard a ton of complaining over the years about inherited projects that us developers have to work with. The WTF site has tons of examples of code that make me actually mutter under my breath "WTF?"
But have any of you actually been presented with code that made you go, "Holy crap this was well thought out!" or "Wow, I never thought of that!"
What inherited code have you had to work with that made you smile and why?
Long ago, I was responsible for the Turbo C/C++ run-time library. Tanj Bennett wrote the original 80x87 floating point emulator in 16-bit assembler. I hadn't looked closely at Tanj's code since it worked well and didn't require attention. But we were making the move to 32-bits and the task fell to me to stretch the emulator.
If programming could ever be said to have something in common with art this was it.
Tanj's core math functions managed to keep an 80-bit floating point temporary result in five 16-bit registers without having to save and restore them from memory. X86 assembly programmers will understand just what an accomplishment this was. Register space was scarce and keeping five registers as your temp while simultaneously doing complex math was a beautiful site to behold.
If it was only a matter of clever coding that would have been enough to qualify it as art but it was more than that. Tanj had carefully picked the underlying math algorithms that would be most suitable for keeping the temp in registers. The result was a blazing-fast floating point emulator which was an important selling point for many of our customers.
By the time the 386 came along most people who cared about floating-point performance weren't using an emulator but we had to support Intel's 386SX so the emulator needed an overhaul. I rewrote the instruction-decode logic and exception handling but left the core math functions completely untouched.
In my first job, I was amazed to discover a "safe ID" class in the codebase (c++), which was wrapping numerical IDs in a class templated with an empty tag class, that ensured that the compiler would complain if you tried for example to compare or assign a UserId into an OrderId.
Not only did I made sure that I had an equivalent Id class in all subsequent codebases I would be using, but it actually opened my eyes on what the compiler could do to guarantee correctness and help writing stronger code.
The code that impresses me the most, and which I try to emulate - is code that seems too simple and easy to understand.
It is damn difficult to write that kind of code. :-)
I have a funny story to tell here.
I was working on this Javaish application, filled with getters & setters that did nothing but get or set and interfaces and everything ever invented to make code unreadable. One day I stumbled upon some code which seemed very well crafted -- it was basically an algorithm implementation that looked very elegant = few lines of readable code, even though it respected every possible rule the project had to adhere to (it was checkstyled automatically).
I couldn't figure out who on the team could have written such code. I was dying to discuss with him and share thoughts. Thankfully, we had switched to subversion (from cvs) a few months earlier and I quickly ran am 'svn blame'. I loled all over the place, seeing my name next to the implementation.
I had heard stories about people not remembering code they wrote 6 months back, code that is a nightmare to maintain. I could not believe such a thing could happen: how can you forget code you wrote? Well, now I'm convinced it can happen. Thankfully the code was alright and easy to extend, so I've only experienced half of the story.
Some VB6 code by another programmer at my company I came across that handled the error conditions very well (whether it be deal with them directly or log them).
Along with some rather complex code that was well commented.
I know this will bring a lot of answers like,
"I've never find good code before I step in" and variations.
I think the real problem there is not that there isn't good coders or excellent projects out there, is that there's an excess of NIH syndrome and the fact that no body likes code from others. The latter is just because you have to make an intellectual effort to understand it, a much bigger effort than you need to understand you own code so that you dislike it (it's making you think and work after all).
Personally I can remember (as everyone I guess) some cases of really bad code but also I remember some pretty well documented, elegant code.
Currently, the project that most impressed me was a very potent, Dynamic Workflow Engine, not only by the simplicity but also for the way it is coded. I can remember some very clever snippets here and there, as well as a beautiful metaprogramming library based on a full IDL developed by some friends of mine (Aspl.es)
I inherited a large bunch of code that was SO well written I actually spent the $40 online to find the guy, I went to his house and thanked him.
I think Rocky Lhotka should get the credit, but I had to touch a CSLA.NET application recently {in my private practice on the side} and I was very impressed with the orderliness of the code. The app worked extremely well, but the client needed a few extensions. The original author had died tragically, and the new guy was unsophisticated. He didn't understand CSLA.NET's business object based approach, and he wanted to do it all over again in cut-and-dried VB.NET, without any fancy framework.
So I got the call. Looking at a working example of WinForm binding and CSLA.NET was pretty instructive about a lot of things.
Symbian OS - the old core bit of it anyway, the bit that dated back to the Psion days or those who even today keep that spirit alive.
And sitting right along side it and all over it is all the new crap created by the lowest bidders hired by the big phone corporations. It was startling, you could actually feel in your bones whether a bit of the code-base was old or new somehow.
I remember when I wrote my bachelor thesis on type inference, my Pascal-to-Pascal 'compiler' was an extension of a Parser my supervisor programmed (in Java). It had a pretty good structure as far as I can remember, and for me who had never done any serious Object-oriented programming, it was quite a revelation.
I've been doing a lot of Eclipse plug-in development and often had to debug into the actual Eclipse source code. While I haven't "inherited" it in the sense that I'm not continuing work on it, I've always been impressed with the design and quality of the early core.