Re: [Savannah-hackers-public] Porting Savane to Perl: A proof of concept

[socketpro]

Savane locally is just httpd running frontend/PHP not installed under 
/usr/local or something, with db schema installed, and php and mysql modules.

The instructions for Savane local is a dozen times longer than it needs to be. 

The git repository Savane sits in is of little use because only the images, css 
files, db schema, and html (scattered around in .php files) will be reused. 
Those files hardly ever change. All the PHP code will be junked, and used only 
as a reference for how the data in the database is to be 
generated/processed--for the parallel Perl rewrite.

I think using a framework, for a project like Savane is negligent. Savane will 
be some sort of infrastructure, and must have very little dependencies. Also, 
those frameworks are infected with newfangled terms and methods. The internet 
in about 30 years old. These framework authors came up with something better 
last night.

I guess you will just have to see it when I'm done I guess. 

Taj

15.10.2014, 18:06, "Assaf Gordon" <address@hidden>:
> Hello Troye,
>
> Thank you for continuing to work on Savane.
>
> I'd first like to emphasize that major changes to GNU Savannah and/or Savane 
> are not going to happen fast.
> I'm stressing this point to prevent disappointment or misleading notions - 
> any changes to the running code on the production GNU Savannah servers will 
> take a lot of time and a lot of reviewing before they are incorporated.
> This is not to say that such changes will not happen - on the contrary: GNU 
> Savannah does need to be improved, and volunteersare always welcomed.
>
> Please note that there are other attempts going on at rewriting Savane, some 
> of them aim at modern PHP.
> There's also a more general discussion/debate as to what is the optimal 
> platform for Savane/GNU-Savannah - I'm not aware of any definite decisions.
> That means that rewriting in Perl is a valid option, but not yet "the chosen" 
> approach (if there is even such a choice).
>
> Feedback, suggestions and more discussions are very welcomed, for everyone.
>
> More specifically:
>
> On 10/12/2014 10:24 PM, socketpro wrote:
>
>>  I have a model for porting Savane ("savane") from PHP to Perl, and I also 
>> have a working model made of Template input files, .pl, sample DB data for 
>> running the .pl script on the "savane" database, and httpd.conf files, else 
>> this post would not be of much interest.
>>
>>  All files to install can be dowloaded with these links:
>>    o 
>> http://sourceforge.net/projects/localmtasendmail/files/perl-savane-0.002.tar.gz/download
>>    o 
>> http://sourceforge.net/projects/localmtasendmail/files/Perl-Savane-Modules-0.002.tar.gz/download
>
> Would you be willing to try your improvements on the local-savane-setup:
> Either here:
>    http://savannah.gnu.org/maintenance/RunningSavaneLocally/
> Or here:
>    http://savannah.gnu.org/maintenance/SavaneInABox/
>
> And provide an INSTALL file detailing how to set it up locally?
>
> I'm hoping to encourage more people to hack on Savane locally, making 
> development easier.
>
> Also,
> Using the current GIT repository, and supplying patches against it would also 
> help others to see how your improvements build upon the existing code - that 
> would be easier than using tarballs.
>
>>  Here are some aspects of the plan:
>>    o the DB schema currently used by savane can be re-used by "Perl savane"
>>    o the "backend" will work w/o modification(s)
>>    o bug trackers, forums, news, mailing lists, "the frontend", etc., will 
>> work w/ data currently in the DB; schema can be re-used
>>    o the "frontend" and all pages constructed by the application will still 
>> use the themes and images under frontend/php/{css,images}, therefore pages 
>> generated will look the same (using same images and CSS), thus users will 
>> not even know they are using a Savane written in Perl rather than PHP
>>    o Template Toolkit ("Template.pm") will be given data to generate HTML 
>> pages for clients. Thus, most of the Perl Savane API will just be functions 
>> that manage data aoff to Template to be displayed in some CGI script (or 
>> modperlv2)--your choice.
>
> That's a good plan.
>
>>  Currently I have lib/Perl/Savane/{Const.pm,DB.pm,Forum.pm} modules written. 
>> The proof of concept uses these three modules. Forum.pm manages "forum data" 
>> fetched from the database using DB.pm, and the foru

Hh the
>> m.pl script calls "print Template->process()" to display the webpage. 
>> Instructions for this are at the end of this document.
>
> I'm wondering out loud:
> If the goal is almost a complete rewrite of the front-end,
> Wouldn't it be beneficial to start with one of the well-established Perl 
> web-frameworks (e.g. Mojolicious/Catalyst/Dancer) ?
>
> Regards,
>   -Assaf