[Baypiggies] The skinny on Pyjamas

[Andrew Akira Toulouse]

The most important question for me:
How good is Pyjamas' own documentation?

On Fri, Aug 13, 2010 at 9:58 AM, Glen Jarvis <glen at glenjarvis.com> wrote:
> As posted by James, here's the quick skinny on pyjamas if you never heard of
> it.
>
>
> As a pyjamas user, I thought I'd chime in. I have been using pyjamas for
> about a year and a half. It is a breath of fresh air for developing web
> front ends. My front ends tend to be very application-like, with lots of
> data-driven widgets. The widget set in pyjamas is very basic, but it is very
> easy to create new widgets that do exactly what the application needs. This
> is IMHO where pyjamas particularly shines; if you need a UI widget that is
> not provided, you just create it. In python.
>
> Additionally, if you need some code that works identically on the front end
> and the back end, it is just a matter of importing it (in python) on both
> sides. For example, I wanted rc4 encryption for an app (don't ask!). It was
> a quick hack from the Wikipedia pseudocode to make a module in python. Then,
> I imported that module into my pyjamas code, and I imported exactly the same
> module into my back-end code. It worked flawlessly.
>
> I would be remiss if I did not mention that PureMVC also works in pyjamas.
> While there is some effort needed to get through the jargon, the event
> system and component code separation you get with PureMVC are worth the
> effort if you are doing anything complex.
>
> The minimum back end for a data-driven app in pyjamas only needs to serve
> static files (your compiled pyjamas app), together with a JSON-RPC listener,
> which can be in any language, and can be installed in most frameworks. A
> JSON-RPC call in pyjamas (once set up) looks a lot like a function call. You
> have to use an async methodology, but that has its blessings as well.
>
> I see that you worry that pyjamas is not ready for prime-time yet. It is
> true that pyjamas has a rather small following, and an even smaller
> advertising budget. There is no big corporation backing pyjamas. However,
> Luke Leighton is managing the project probably as well as an open source
> project can be. Test coverage is very good, particularly for the
> python-to-javascript translator. The python implementation is fairly
> complete; do you really need "eval" and "exec"? Actually, those may be
> available down the pike. In general, if you write something that does not
> work, it will be a flaw in your code, not the framework. Fortunately, you
> can recompile with a "debug" flag, and it will give you a good hint of where
> you went wrong. If that is not good enough, the mailing list is quite
> responsive, if you do not expect too much hand-holding.
>
> Pyjamas compiles separate code for each of the major web browsers; it
> started as a python port of GWT in (fluffy) java. The GWT documentation
> still applies in most cases, though in practice I tend to keep a gedit
> window open with several pyjamas UI modules for reference. The source for
> any widget tends to be small and readable.
>
> Widget styling uses CSS, which alleviates one major headache in UI design.
> You can addStyleName or removeStylename for any widget anytime you want, and
> the web browser just obeys.
>
> The generated javascript files are pretty big, but if you enable compression
> in the web server, load time can be acceptable even on dial-up. Since
> pyjamas will make you think in a data-driven way, popular pages could easily
> be done with standard templates from your back end framework, and you could
> reserve your pyjamas pages for your users that need a truly interactive
> experience. It is not an either-or decision here. With CSS, this can be
> seamless.
>
> I have only touched on the major things I love about pyjamas. There is more.
> The main advice is: don't be afraid to try pyjamas; you'll be happy you did.
> Use the version in the svn/git repository; it is the most up-to-date (small
> crowd: not very frequent releases). You already know python. Dive into the
> source at pyjamas/library/pyjamas/ui for the widgets. Play with and build
> the examples at pyjamas/examples. It's more mature than you think.
> Posted by James Washington
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