On Dec 22, 2010, at 10:46 AM, Chip Nowacek wrote:

Thanks for your help so far.

Now that I've had a chance to get my feet wet, start an eval of VW, watch Peter Fisk's progress, etc. I've hit a scary point. To go the distance, my app needs the maturity and capacity of Squeak/Pharo/VW(?). And, near- and long-term, it needs an elegant, cogent, captivating, intelligent, engaging, interactive front end. I've considered doing it in Flash or Silverlight or AIR (fat client) or straight JavaScript - though splitting the tiers and forgetting the backend seems like a lot of deferred pain. I know I have to worry about deployment. I am. I'd rather do it through the browser. And, even though DabbleDB and others are some of the coolest apps ever, I don't see Seaside cutting the front-end mustard (at least the way I understand things at this point).

what is specific about your app?

I sure wish there was a lightening-fast, browser-based, morphic-3-supporting VM so I could run ST on both tiers. A sexy, Smalltalk Lively-Kernel. I'm still trying to get Clamato to work.

So, in your professional, experienced opinions, can I get a front end on Pharo (either in-image via Rome/Athens or some cooler-than-I've-seen, through-the-browser front end)?

it depends what you need. Our plans with igor are to produce a nice API to access Cairo and openVG but this will not happen before 3-4 months.

With all due respect to the Founding Fathers, I can't do eToys. Should I just do the whole client tier in in JS for the prototype and then hook to Seaside later?

did you see nextPlan? Because they generate svg too?

Any thoughts would be deeply appreciated.

Thanks,

Chip -- View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/big-ui-decisions-tp3160359p3160359.html Sent from the Pharo Smalltalk mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

Hi Chip, For really cool web browser based apps watch also Iliad [1] and Aida/Web [2], we both have a big plans on richer client-side web apps, also standalone and offline, that is, they can work without a connection to the web server. And there are tools which package such an app actually completely standalone, for installation on mobile devices, for now. See for instance a PhoneGap [3] which wrap web applications inside a native application, as described in O'Reilly book [4]. This approach could be extended to any desktop too. To conclude, with our web technology we can actually "generate" standalone desktop apps, by using just HTML5, CSS and JavaScript, all generated from Smalltalk only! Best regards Janko [1] Iliad http://www.iliadproject.org [2] Aida/Web http://www.aidaweb.si [3] PhoneGap http://www.nitobi.com/products/phonegap [4] Building Android Apps HTML, CSS and JavaScript, O'Reilly 2010 On 22. 12. 2010 10:46, Chip Nowacek wrote:

Thanks for your help so far.

Now that I've had a chance to get my feet wet, start an eval of VW, watch Peter Fisk's progress, etc. I've hit a scary point. To go the distance, my app needs the maturity and capacity of Squeak/Pharo/VW(?). And, near- and long-term, it needs an elegant, cogent, captivating, intelligent, engaging, interactive front end. I've considered doing it in Flash or Silverlight or AIR (fat client) or straight JavaScript - though splitting the tiers and forgetting the backend seems like a lot of deferred pain. I know I have to worry about deployment. I am. I'd rather do it through the browser. And, even though DabbleDB and others are some of the coolest apps ever, I don't see Seaside cutting the front-end mustard (at least the way I understand things at this point). I sure wish there was a lightening-fast, browser-based, morphic-3-supporting VM so I could run ST on both tiers. A sexy, Smalltalk Lively-Kernel. I'm still trying to get Clamato to work.

So, in your professional, experienced opinions, can I get a front end on Pharo (either in-image via Rome/Athens or some cooler-than-I've-seen, through-the-browser front end)? With all due respect to the Founding Fathers, I can't do eToys. Should I just do the whole client tier in in JS for the prototype and then hook to Seaside later?

Any thoughts would be deeply appreciated.

Thanks,

Chip

-- Janko Mivšek Svetovalec za informatiko Eranova d.o.o. Ljubljana, Slovenija www.eranova.si tel: 01 514 22 55 faks: 01 514 22 56 gsm: 031 674 565

On 22.12.2010 10:46, Chip Nowacek wrote:

Thanks for your help so far.

Now that I've had a chance to get my feet wet, start an eval of VW, watch Peter Fisk's progress, etc. I've hit a scary point. To go the distance, my app needs the maturity and capacity of Squeak/Pharo/VW(?). And, near- and long-term, it needs an elegant, cogent, captivating, intelligent, engaging, interactive front end. I've considered doing it in Flash or Silverlight or AIR (fat client) or straight JavaScript - though splitting the tiers and forgetting the backend seems like a lot of deferred pain. I know I have to worry about deployment. I am. I'd rather do it through the browser. And, even though DabbleDB and others are some of the coolest apps ever, I don't see Seaside cutting the front-end mustard (at least the way I understand things at this point).

How so? Seaside generates HTML like every other web framework. You can make your app look like every website / web application you want. Cheers Philippe