The future of Nitro, Og and Raw

Ruby Apps Nitro
1

Not sure who all is still listening but I have something to say.

As Dan N. said a while back. Nitro is quite feature full and could
really use some time to settle in with some bug fixes and a really solid
release. I may end up taking a stab at this. Once I got some fixes
into
the Nitro and Raw dependancies and require statements. A simple “nitro
hello;cd hello;nitro” works out of the box. I also converted the entire
projects to “newgem” projects ( no offense intended ). The rake build
tasks
in there are excellent and “rake local_deploy” works perfectly. I have
not
touched Og, it seems to be pretty solid already. (side note: I think Og
could stand on it’s own two feet as well but if you want me to hold onto
it
for a while I will)

CHANGELOG:

Fixed Nitro and Raw gemspec dependancies
Fixed missing “require ‘raw/controller’” in raw.rb
Replaced lib/facets.rb with a gemspec dependancy
Converted Nitro to a newgem project to capitalize on the rake tasks and
rubyforge integration
Converted Raw to a newgem project to capitalize on the rake tasks and
rubyforge integration

TODO:

I think I found some bugs in the admin part, which in my opinion is key
to
getting a new user’s feet wet with nitro and og. I’d like to fix those.
Massive build up of examples in the rdocs
Move good examples to the prototype site produced by “nitro
project_name”
Include more details in the actual prototype site code and startup files
like app.rb and config/debug.rb
I do not plan to move away from using the current unit testing. However
I
will create new tests using rspec and rbehave. They are not mutually
exclusive
Get “rake docs” working
Get “rake website_generate” working

With your permission, Trans and George I’m talking to you, I’ll put
some
more effort into this and see what I can come up with. None of my
changes
will mess with the api, my entire goal is stability and usability.
After
presenting my initial work to you guys, we can decide where you want to
go
from there.

Before I forget, Robert M., if your out there. I’d love to get a
hold
of your cheatsheets for inclusion in the actual rdocs. Looks like your
site
has been reclaimed by the domain goblins.

Hope to hear from you,
Chris Scheper

2

Hi Chris.

I’m probably the last guy in the room - I promised to switch off the
lights
:slight_smile:

Have you seen ramaze http://ramaze.net? It seems inspired by the same
values as nitro, and there is a lot of energy behind it at the moment. I
would check with trans and george whether your time might be better
spent
helping out with ramaze (which already considers og a first class ORM
along
with sequel, datamapper and activerecord).

Just a thought, and I’m glad I’m not the only one who wanted to see a
life
after rails :slight_smile:

Cheers,
Dan

2008/10/23 chris [email protected]

3

Dan N. wrote:

Hi Chris.

I’m probably the last guy in the room - I promised to switch off the lights
:slight_smile:

Have you seen ramaze http://ramaze.net? It seems inspired by the same
values as nitro, and there is a lot of energy behind it at the moment. I
would check with trans and george whether your time might be better spent
helping out with ramaze (which already considers og a first class ORM along
with sequel, datamapper and activerecord).

While Ramaze is clearly based off ideas in Nitro (if not Nitro itself),
I don’t think it has quite the same approach to pipelining
transformations and filtering.

It would be well worth looking at the essential differences between
Ramaze and Nitro and considering if effort is better spent in adding
Nitro aspects to Ramaze (either directly or as some sort of plugin).

If that’s not feasible, then having Nitro spring back to life would be
quite cool.

Just a thought, and I’m glad I’m not the only one who wanted to see a life
after rails :slight_smile:

There’s always been life before, during, and after Rails. Ruby has had
interesting Web development almost all along. It just rarely got the
attention it deserved.

–
James B.

www.happycamperstudios.com - Wicked Cool Coding
www.jamesbritt.com - Playing with Better Toys
www.ruby-doc.org - Ruby Help & Documentation
www.rubystuff.com - The Ruby Store for Ruby Stuff

4

Hi Chris,

I’m still listening. After George went south on the project I haven’t
had any real motivation to continue. But it’s a real shame
considering. I think it would be great for you to pick up the torch
and run with it.

On Oct 23, 11:10 am, chris [email protected] wrote:

Not sure who all is still listening but I have something to say.

As Dan N. said a while back. Nitro is quite feature full and could
really use some time to settle in with some bug fixes and a really solid
release. I may end up taking a stab at this. Once I got some fixes into
the Nitro and Raw dependancies and require statements. A simple “nitro
hello;cd hello;nitro” works out of the box. I also converted the entire
projects to “newgem” projects ( no offense intended ).

If it works for you, that’s fine. Since I stopped working on Nitro I
recrafted my whole build suite anyway.

But how does newgem help except to build a gem?

The rake build tasks
in there are excellent and “rake local_deploy” works perfectly. I have not
touched Og, it seems to be pretty solid already. (side note: I think Og
could stand on it’s own two feet as well but if you want me to hold onto it
for a while I will)

I separated Og into it’s own project. See http://ogden.rubyforge.org.
There is a git repo. It is pretty much exactly what is in the current
Nitro repo. I figured splitting Og off on it’s own was the first thing
to do in working toward a new stable release. Unfortunately the tests
were converted to RSpec just before all that (not by me), and they do
not fully pass and I have not been able to track down all the issues –
I wish we had the old unit tests instead.

The main plans I had for the future of Og were to make “enchanting”
explicit, and remove as much dynamic code injection as possible (there
is a lot of that in this lib). But a new solid release before all
that, at this point, would probably be best to help get a little fire
going under it.

TODO:

I think I found some bugs in the admin part, which in my opinion is key to
getting a new user’s feet wet with nitro and og. I’d like to fix those.
Massive build up of examples in the rdocs
Move good examples to the prototype site produced by “nitro project_name”
Include more details in the actual prototype site code and startup files
like app.rb and config/debug.rb
I do not plan to move away from using the current unit testing. However I
will create new tests using rspec and rbehave. They are not mutually
exclusive

Ultimately it’s your call, but I’d prefer not going the rspec and
rbehave route. There are much more important things to do. If you want
to move toward BDD, using minitest’s mini/spec (now included in Ruby
1.9, btw) or Shoulda would be a much easier, more tempered step in
that direction.

Get “rake docs” working
Get “rake website_generate” working

With your permission, Trans and George I’m talking to you, I’ll put some
more effort into this and see what I can come up with. None of my changes
will mess with the api, my entire goal is stability and usability. After
presenting my initial work to you guys, we can decide where you want to go
from there.

That’s more than considerate. Since the project has been down for the
count, I say, feel free to take her where you want. As you can tell
from my reply I’m still interested in seeing this project succeed and
am happy to help where as I can.

Before I forget, Robert M., if your out there. I’d love to get a hold
of your cheatsheets for inclusion in the actual rdocs. Looks like your site
has been reclaimed by the domain goblins.

T.

5

On Thu, Oct 23, 2008 at 4:37 PM, trans [email protected] wrote:

Hi Chris,

I’m still listening. After George went south on the project I haven’t
had any real motivation to continue. But it’s a real shame
considering. I think it would be great for you to pick up the torch
and run with it.

We’ll see what happens but I’m going to try.

If it works for you, that’s fine. Since I stopped working on Nitro I
recrafted my whole build suite anyway.

But how does newgem help except to build a gem?

It’s not just the gem build it has direct rake tasks to upload a built
gem
directly to rubyforge and much more. Rake is a tool I can’t live
without.
I’m really surprised it wasn’t used in the darcs repo source.

There is a git repo. It is pretty much exactly what is in the current
Nitro repo. I figured splitting Og off on it’s own was the first thing
to do in working toward a new stable release. Unfortunately the tests
were converted to RSpec just before all that (not by me), and they do
not fully pass and I have not been able to track down all the issues –
I wish we had the old unit tests instead.

As I’m poking around I’ll see what I can do about finding those tests
along
the way.

The main plans I had for the future of Og were to make “enchanting”
explicit, and remove as much dynamic code injection as possible (there
is a lot of that in this lib). But a new solid release before all
that, at this point, would probably be best to help get a little fire
going under it.

Hopefully my time investment in nitro will help out the og movement as
well. I still think it outshines activerecord by leaps and bounds.

I

will create new tests using rspec and rbehave. They are not mutually
exclusive

Ultimately it’s your call, but I’d prefer not going the rspec and
rbehave route. There are much more important things to do. If you want
to move toward BDD, using minitest’s mini/spec (now included in Ruby
1.9, btw) or Shoulda would be a much easier, more tempered step in
that direction.

Going the rspec and rbehave route is something which I have proven to
myself
helps me write really solid code. Not necessary, just what helps me
work
better. I will definitely look into mini and shoulda, thanks for the
suggestions.

from there.

That’s more than considerate. Since the project has been down for the
count, I say, feel free to take her where you want. As you can tell
from my reply I’m still interested in seeing this project succeed and
am happy to help where as I can.

Well, thank you for your support and I’ll keep updating the mailing list
as
I go along. I’ll keep my requests for major effort on your part to an
minimum. However getting access to rubyforge may be necessary in the
next
few weeks.

6

On Thu, Oct 23, 2008 at 5:58 PM, James B. [email protected]
wrote:

would check with trans and george whether your time might be better spent
and Nitro and considering if effort is better spent in adding Nitro aspects
to Ramaze (either directly or as some sort of plugin).

If that’s not feasible, then having Nitro spring back to life would be
quite cool.

The core mission of what I’m shooting for with nitro will be published
here
by the end of next week. I will also be bringing in some short term
goals,
long term goals and a roadmap for nitro. I hope this will clear up the
ramaze v/s nitro debate and/or create some discussion as to what options
we
have. If ramaze meets up to what I’m looking for, maybe I will let
nitro go
back to sleep.

Just a thought, and I’m glad I’m not the only one who wanted to see a life
after rails :slight_smile:

There’s always been life before, during, and after Rails. Ruby has had
interesting Web development almost all along. It just rarely got the
attention it deserved

.

7

Hello Chris,

nice to see a post on this list after all this time :wink:

I have no problem with your proposal, it’s OK by me.

Btw, in the last few months I have created a brand new web (or should I
say
REST) framework for my own use. It’s completely different to the old
Nitro
(and frameworks like Rails/Merb). I am trying to make it as simple and
standards compliant as possible. The plan is to eventually write some
docs
and release it as open source, but we 'll see about that. At the moment
the
server side logic is written in Ruby, but I am thinking about switching
to
server side javascript in the future. I am extremely pleased with what I
have so far :wink: :wink:

An early version of this framework powers my new blog: www.gmosx.com,
check
this out…

regards,
-g.

8

I looked at ramaze when first checking out nitro and my philosophy
seemed to
fit better with nitro. But, I’ll take another look.

I’ll get into my philosophy and why I think nitro still has a better
shot at
becoming a world class framework later. For now lets just keep our eyes
on
getting a stable release out with a much better set of easy to find and
working examples and docs.

Chris

9

Excellent news. Glad to see your still on here :slight_smile:

I’ll be sure to check it’s out.

-Chris

On Thu, Oct 23, 2008 at 12:18 PM, Georgios M. <

10

I’d be very keen to see a decent REST implementation in ruby.

Cheers,
Dan

2008/10/23 Georgios M. [email protected]

11

I am extremely happy with what I have :wink:
But I want to try it out in a few more internal projects to make sure
the
design is valid.
But surely it is not for everyone.

-g.

12

Dan N. wrote:

I’d be very keen to see a decent REST implementation in ruby.

Isn’t that what the Sinatra Web thing claims?

James