About Harbour Future...

Discuss anything else that does not suite other forums.

Moderator: Rathinagiri

User avatar
Roberto Lopez
HMG Founder
Posts: 4004
Joined: Wed Jul 30, 2008 6:43 pm

About Harbour Future...

Post by Roberto Lopez »

Hi All,

A couple of hours ago I've posted the following message in the Harbour developers mailing list.

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Hi All,

I'm developing an application right now, but, since the application must be accessible to the general public via the web, I've decided to use HTML+PHP+MYSQL.

As an xBase programmer I feel very bad.

I could use Harbour CGI but, run binaries on web servers are not always possible and not available at some hosting services (and IMHO a 'dying' technology anyway).

Some time ago, in this list, someone (I not remember exactly who) said something like that more important that GUIs for different platforms, the web development must be one of the main interest in the future Harbour development.

I absolutely agree with that, but I think that the approach should be a quite different from the ones proposed here.

I guess that the web browsers should be considered as operating systems (or platforms) by itself and that Harbour should be capable of creating 'executables' for such platforms.

That means that Harbour should be capable of create JavaScript code.

I know that It could be tremendous effort to do such thing, that JavaScript is extremely weak and limited compared with C, but as a first goal for this project, only subset of current Harbour features could be supported.

I'm not thinking in a VM wrote in JavaScript, but perhaps, a Harbour to JavaScript translator could be a good idea.

Regarding GUI, interface objects defined via the Clipper 5.3 syntax should be enough to satisfy most of usual needs on web development, so old code could be reused with few changes.

Please, prior to consider this as a 'weird' idea, take a look at Google web toolkit. It translates Java to JavaScript to create web applications, so a Harbour to JavaScript translator could be not an impossible task.

JavaScript run on any browser and browsers run on any operating system (current and future) so the possibilities are unlimited, so we could have our Harbour apps running on any device, current or future.

There was just some random thoughts from a Harbour user... I'll continue writing my PHP app :)

Regards,

Roberto.

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Any comments are welcome:

Regards,

Roberto.
Regards/Saludos,

Roberto


(Veritas Filia Temporis)
User avatar
Rathinagiri
Posts: 5471
Joined: Tue Jul 29, 2008 6:30 pm
DBs Used: MariaDB, SQLite, SQLCipher and MySQL
Location: Sivakasi, India
Contact:

Re: About Harbour Future...

Post by Rathinagiri »

Rightly said.

Now, may be a silly question.

Is there any possibility to club HMG & GTK? (GTK - either Google web Tool Kit or Gimp Tool Kit.)
East or West HMG is the Best.
South or North HMG is worth.
...the possibilities are endless.
User avatar
Roberto Lopez
HMG Founder
Posts: 4004
Joined: Wed Jul 30, 2008 6:43 pm

Re: About Harbour Future...

Post by Roberto Lopez »

rathinagiri wrote:Rightly said.

Now, may be a silly question.

Is there any possibility to club HMG & GTK? (GTK - either Google web Tool Kit or Gimp Tool Kit.)
I'm not sure of fully understand the question, but I'll try to answer.

GTK is a GUI toolkit. GNOME (Linux desktop) and its applications are based on GTK. GTK is similar to Win32 API (Experimental HMG for Linux is based on GTK).

By the other hand, Google web toolkit is a very different tool.

It allows to create applications capable of run 'inside' a web browser.

You can learn about that here: http://code.google.com/webtoolkit/overview.html

Google docs, gmail, etc are samples of this technology.

Regards,

Roberto
Regards/Saludos,

Roberto


(Veritas Filia Temporis)
User avatar
esgici
Posts: 4543
Joined: Wed Jul 30, 2008 9:17 pm
DBs Used: DBF
Location: iskenderun / Turkiye
Contact:

Re: About Harbour Future...

Post by esgici »

Roberto Lopez wrote:
...

By the other hand, Google web toolkit is a very different tool.

It allows to create applications capable of run 'inside' a web browser.

...

Google docs, gmail, etc are samples of this technology.
Personally,

I am very worn-out by rushing in pursuit new technologies :(

Too late for learn, too early for die :cry:

Regards

--

esgici
Viva INTERNATIONAL HMG :D
User avatar
apais
Posts: 440
Joined: Fri Aug 01, 2008 6:03 pm
DBs Used: DBF
Location: uruguay
Contact:

Re: About Harbour Future...

Post by apais »

Hola Roberto et all...

You mean running an interpreter over another interpreter? Harbour pcode over javascript interpreted code...
I don`t know, today's hardware admits all kinds of beasts no mather how many layers of execution they have (see .NET).
Programming is all about metaphores but...
The main difference among a web interface and a gui/cui one is how-when data is accessed and how we keep the program status.
When we open a dfb in a browse the program remembers a lot of things-settings about itself. A web server knows nothing about you each time you send a request to it. All this new javascript-ajax hype is a new try to reinvent the wheel by trying to convert a stateless paradigm into a statefull one again.
When you think of it, we are trying to use the web server program as a data server and a web browser as a desktop.
But as I said earlier it all about how many layers of execution our hardware is capable of.
Who will be the first one to handle that stone ?

Sorry, late night thoughts made public ;)

Cheers to you all.

Angel Pais
Amigo Software
Montevideo-Uruguay
Angel Pais
Web Apps consultant/architect/developer.
HW_apache (webserver modules) co-developer.
HbTron (Html GUI for harbour desktop hybrid apps) co-developer.
https://www.hbtron.com
User avatar
Roberto Lopez
HMG Founder
Posts: 4004
Joined: Wed Jul 30, 2008 6:43 pm

Re: About Harbour Future...

Post by Roberto Lopez »

esgici wrote:
Roberto Lopez wrote:
...

By the other hand, Google web toolkit is a very different tool.

It allows to create applications capable of run 'inside' a web browser.

...

Google docs, gmail, etc are samples of this technology.
Personally,

I am very worn-out by rushing in pursuit new technologies :(

Too late for learn, too early for die :cry:

Regards

--

esgici
Is not 'rush'.

Because the lack of a 'Harbour For Web Applications' I must use alternative languages like PHP, right now.

Regards,

Roberto.
Regards/Saludos,

Roberto


(Veritas Filia Temporis)
User avatar
Roberto Lopez
HMG Founder
Posts: 4004
Joined: Wed Jul 30, 2008 6:43 pm

Re: About Harbour Future...

Post by Roberto Lopez »

apais wrote:Hola Roberto et all...

You mean running an interpreter over another interpreter? Harbour pcode over javascript interpreted code...
No. I mean a translator, capable to support a subset of current Harbour features.

In other words, I'm talking about a tool that from a .prg Harbour program can generate an equivalent JavaScript program, translating source .prg line by line and adding necessary support functions to emulate Harbour functions used in original Harbour source program.

This way, there is not a double interpretation of the code.
apais wrote:
I don`t know, today's hardware admits all kinds of beasts no mather how many layers of execution they have (see .NET).
Programming is all about metaphores but...
As I've said I'm talking about a translator, so there is not double interpretation.
apais wrote:
The main difference among a web interface and a gui/cui one is how-when data is accessed and how we keep the program status.
When we open a dfb in a browse the program remembers a lot of things-settings about itself. A web server knows nothing about you each time you send a request to it. All this new javascript-ajax hype is a new try to reinvent the wheel by trying to convert a stateless paradigm into a statefull one again.
I agree with you, but the web is here and is all around. It is not nice thing for programmers, but, more and more is only way to go.

I'm not talking about web sites only. More on more people want to access their applications from wi-fi connected notebooks, public machines or from any other device connected to Internet.

My idea is related to try to keep (as far as possible) the xBase coding style and 'thinking' in this new world.
apais wrote:
When you think of it, we are trying to use the web server program as a data server and a web browser as a desktop.
Exactly yes.
apais wrote:
But as I said earlier it all about how many layers of execution our hardware is capable of.
Who will be the first one to handle that stone ?
Google Web Toolkit is here.

You can download and test yourself.

http://code.google.com/webtoolkit/

But (again) remember that there is not a new 'interpretation layer' it is all about translation.

Google web toolkit takes Java sources and translates into JavaScript. My proposition is to take Harbour sources and translate into JavaScript.
apais wrote:
Sorry, late night thoughts made public ;)

Cheers to you all.
Thanks!

Regards,

Roberto.
Regards/Saludos,

Roberto


(Veritas Filia Temporis)
User avatar
Roberto Lopez
HMG Founder
Posts: 4004
Joined: Wed Jul 30, 2008 6:43 pm

Re: About Harbour Future...

Post by Roberto Lopez »

Roberto Lopez wrote: I'm not thinking in a VM wrote in JavaScript, but perhaps, a Harbour to JavaScript translator could be a good idea.
A lot of times I had very nice, great ideas, but later discovered that someone had the same idea a lot of time ago :)

Well appears to be that someone had wrote a Basic to JavaScript Translator :)

The bad news are that I've not being original... the good news are that is possible do it.

http://www.codeproject.com/KB/recipes/JSBasic.aspx

Regards,

Roberto.
Regards/Saludos,

Roberto


(Veritas Filia Temporis)
User avatar
Roberto Lopez
HMG Founder
Posts: 4004
Joined: Wed Jul 30, 2008 6:43 pm

Re: About Harbour Future...

Post by Roberto Lopez »

Roberto Lopez wrote:
Roberto Lopez wrote: ...
A lot of times I had very nice, great ideas, but later discovered that someone had the same idea a lot of time ago :)
...
And... http://homepages.tig.com.au/~garys/

The next time that I have another 'original' idea, I'll google it to assure that it is really original :)

Regards,

Roberto.
Regards/Saludos,

Roberto


(Veritas Filia Temporis)
User avatar
Roberto Lopez
HMG Founder
Posts: 4004
Joined: Wed Jul 30, 2008 6:43 pm

Re: About Harbour Future...

Post by Roberto Lopez »

I'm talking about this:

- All our programs will run inside a web browser.

- Remember that web browsers are capable of run JavaScript programs (despite the underlying operating system).

- The JavaScript programs must be embedded into a web page (that we will copy to our web server or to local file system).

- The web pages containing our programs should look like this (copy this skeleton and save as 'Test.html'):

Code: Select all

<html>
<body>
<script type="text/javascript">


... our Program must be here ...


</script>
</body>
</html>
- Lets assume that we want to translate the following Harbour program (copy the following code and save as 'test.prg'):

Code: Select all

? "Hello World!"
- So, our problem is to automatically translate the '?' command to its JavaScript counterpart.

- Harbour preprocessor is a very powerful tool, so we could create an appropriate directive to handle this situation:

Code: Select all

#xcommand ? <argument> ;
=>;
document.write(<argument>)
- And add it to the start of our program:

Code: Select all

* Harbour To JavaScript Translation Directives *

#xcommand ? <argument> ;
=>;
document.write(<argument>)

* Program *

? "Hello World!"

- As you can imagine, document.write is the JavaScript equivalent to Harbour '?' command.

- Finally we will use Harbour preprocessor to do the translation automatically (you'll find it at the Harbour binary distribution as '\bin\hbpp.exe')

- Copy hbpp.exe to our test folder and run the following command:

Code: Select all

hbpp.exe test.prg
- A new file (test.ppo) has been created.

- Finally, you must copy the content of that file to the script section of out 'test.html' page. The result is the following:

Code: Select all

<html>
<body>

<script type="text/javascript">

document.write("Hello World!")

</script>

</body>
</html>
And open with your web browser.

- Most of you must be wondering... Ok, but what about the data.
The data (of course) will be provided by an SQL server (probably MySql). There is a lot of ways to make the request and retrieve the data, but that is the 'easy' part anyway.

The hard thing here is to write equivalents for Harbour functions to be included in our scripts when required to make your programs work.

This is a huge work that will require thousands of hours of hard work.

More important is that you must not expect to have a 100% Clipper compatibility here. I'm talking about of a subset of Clipper/Harbour functionality, limited by the restrictions of destination platforms (web browsers).

The good news are that HTML and JavaScript are more powerful with each new version, and the computers more faster with each generation, so, the time is on our side.

The prize is very big. Our applications could run on almost any device having a web browser.

The end.

For those considering this ideas weird or silly, I'm sorry in advance if I disturbed you with this :)

But remember... MiniGUI was considered a silly idea for a lot of people and... we still here :)

Regards,

Roberto.
Regards/Saludos,

Roberto


(Veritas Filia Temporis)
Post Reply