Re: [boost] [Boost-docs] Maintaining boost.org

Subject: Re: [boost] [Boost-docs] Maintaining boost.org
From: Artyom (artyomtnk_at_[hidden])
Date: 2010-06-02 03:10:48

> otherwise
> you are
> free to kill the session once served.  The amount of
> data it holds is
> only your own design, can be as little or large as
> necessary.

There are two points:

1. Without caching (and AFAIK Wt does not even has such concept)
   you'll get stuck very fast. Even C++ is faster then PHP by 
   order of magnitude this will not save you with large DB when
   queries are not so cheep.

2. Web is stateless for 99% percent of visitors. Giving a session
   to each request IMHO is bad idea. 

> 
> True, but it can handle a very Qt style or design (which I
> personally
> do not like, nor do I use it), or a very CSS centric style,
> or any
> mix.

As I told you, IMHO web is not GUI... Thinking of it as GUI just
makes things bad.

> 
> Oh not even, the main advantage of web design in C++ is its
> powerful
> capabilities and ability to abstract things away. 

This is not about C++, it is about framework.

> Since I started
> using Wt I can get a site running faster then I ever could
> have with
> PHP or Python 

I'm not talking about plain PHP, or plain Python. I'm talking about
using web framework like Django.


> 
> What I meant by low level is that it has no higher level
> abstractions
> as Wt has, it is nothing but pure MVC, where Wt is more
> like Qt (which
> is MVS anyway, but like a GUI program, or you can use the
> lower-level
> capabilities if you so wished).  CppCMS does *not* do
> near what Wt
> has, I tried it (I do prefer its license over Wt's),

The point that Wt tries to make web development as GUI.

I think that web developer should write HTML, should write JavaScript
(actually using one of JavaScript toolkits like JQuery) and
write server side code.

Hiding this behind the "GUI" framework leads to bad design.

HTTP connections are not cheap, the signals/slots design make designer
to forget when comes behind the scenes.

Signals and slots are good when they called withing same process and
not over RPC that is passed over HTTP.

This abstraction leads to bad code, bad design and total misunderstanding
what web is.

> 
> Good caching is useful, no matter what you use.
> 

AFAIK Wt does not even has such concept... While it is one of the
central design concepts of CppCMS - efficient caching.


> One major difference is that you do not need
> to write
> templates as in CppCMS (well, you could also write out raw
> html from
> CppCMS), since Wt lets you design it like a Gui app, you
> can create
> things *FAR* quicker

I disagree with you that writing HTML slows things down. It makes
them clearer, easier to debug and smaller. 

> So on and so forth.  I tried using
> CppCMS, but it just
> does not do anywhere near as much to smooth the workflow
> in comparison.

- When had you tried it?
- Which version? 
- What had you written with it?

And:

- How much time would it take to write an application like Wikipp in Wt?
- What performance will you get?


It took me about several evenings only to write such application from
the begging to the end including testing, and deploying and fixing CppCMS
bugs I had found.

And it was first serious CppCMS application.

It holds about 2,500 requests per second on 1CPU machine.


> 
> Ditto, and a couple years of experience with Wt, and a
> decade with
> PHP, and a **few months** with CppCMS.

Good point.


Summary: 
--------

- Developing web application as you develop GUI is not suited for 
  general web development 

- Signals/Slots mode has big overhead and hides too much from developer.

- HTML and templates are essential for web development, hiding them
  behind Qt like "layout" abstracts brings back and not forward.

Best,
  Artyom