Why Neto/Shopify use their own templating language instead using any popular popular language ?
When you have your own templating language you have full freedom to implement or limit the logic of the language to meet your needs.
You don't need to wait for a third party update in order to implement new stuff or objects.
Why do you think Samsung creates clones of google apps on their phones? To create an experience that they can control in some way and if they like to change or add something to do so and not to wait for google to do so. ( and some other things but that is outside the scope of this question )
Since liquid was a Tobias Lütke creation ( co-founder and CEO at Shopify ) and now is an Open Source project it was written in specific fashion in order to meet specific needs and those needs seems to be fitting for Shopify and other platforms as well.
Being popular doesn't mean being better! This is the wrong way to go.
WordPress is the most popular platform, but is it the best one - NO! There are a lot of hole provided by plugins, poorly written themes and some times core issues. While it's easy to use and extendable it opens a lot of doors for issues if you don't manage it properly.
Beats by Dre is the most popular headphones and quite expensive, does they sound as good as the price tag put on them - NO! You can buy the same quality headphones ( even better ) for less, but you are paying for the brand.
Creating new languages in the coding world is ALWAYS a good thing It might be a chore to learn it if it becomes a standard but that means that it provided something that the other popular languages didn't and this pushes the coding world forward. It's a much better alternative than to be in a standstill like when we had only jQuery and there were no new stuffs to excite the developers.
Now we have so much different things that you can choose the direction you like to go and you won't be able to learn all of them even if you try, which is a great thing to a developer who likes to grow.
Conclusion:
Being different is OK as long as that fits your needs and you are not doing it just because it's popular to be different. ( so true IRL now too :D )
This reasoning from their Github Wiki lists some of the reasons. Why Liquid Templating Engine ?
Liquid is a template engine which was crafted for very specific
requirements
It has to have simple markup and beautiful results. Template engines which don't produce good looking results are no fun to use.
It needs to be non-evaling and secure. Liquid templates are made so that users can edit them. You don't want your server running code
that your users wrote.
It has to be stateless. The compile and render steps have to be separate, so that the expensive parsing and compiling can be done
once; later on, you can just render it by passing in a hash with local
variables and objects.
It needs to be able to style emails as well as HTML.
Related
A little background first, recently began coding and I decided to take the "learn as you go" approach as this is solely a project. I have a pretty good handle of HTML and CSS, I have an understanding of Jquery, and haven't even begun to look at other languages.
So basically I'm making a suedo-e-commerce site, and I'm trying to create a page layout comprising of several divs stacked together (think standard catalog page) Creating the modules and every static with HTML and CSS, but I want to add the content, comprising of a banner and some text blocks, dynamically from a database. Now, I'm pretty sure that I will have to use SQL and reference each entry with the HTML, but I have no idea how to do that or where to even start. So I'm asking if someone could point me in the right direction with some reading material, or some examples would be awesome.
You need to use one of databases (MySQL, MSSQL etc.) to save data. In order to show data from database you need to use one of background/server side programming languages. For start I would suggest that you try with php.
W3schools is good starting point for you.
This is very simplified and I hope not condescending. Consider separating how you collect your data and you present your data (the 'view layer'). SQL will help you pull / organize your data, and you could just string functions to add formatting (e.g. div's) to it, but you are better off investigating templating HTML. What happens when you want to put this data into a ul list or something? You have to re-write your perfectly good SQL. Again, very broadly, pull data (with SQL, PHP, combination), ( or get it from a URL with javascript), into a data structure, then within a loop in your template, add the dives for each element.
Good reading really depends on which platform you'll be developing this in. There are a bazillion alternatives, including many in Javascript, PHP, Ruby, Python, Go, ASP. Since you mention SQL, you must have some data somewhere (rather than a data service) so you'll need a server-side language, and since you are a beginner, you may want to look into PHP which I think is approachable. Within that there are several PHP frameworks for data, and several for templating, and several with both. Many of the full frameworks (in any language) are geared for experienced web devs. That said, I like the twig templating language for PHP
This, I think, is a good place to start http://www.phptherightway.com along with the super popular but basic W3schools. The link above I think organizes the concept a little better.
You can install the stuff you need on your laptop for that standard (and old school) 'LAMP stack', or use one of the many hosting companies, nearly all of which provide everything you need. good luck learning!
I work in a small organization that has built an enterprise SaaS solution. Up until this point our workflows have had no programmatic interface. We're moving to a model that will allow for an end user to do anything programmatically that can be done in the UI. I'm looking for suggestions in terms of the language/framework that you would use to build that programmatic layer.
From an organizational perspective I would like the current UI team to also have ownership of the API. That team is familiar with PHP, Rails, and Javascript. Our current back-end code is written in Scala. I'm leaning toward not doing the APIs in Scala because it doesn't seem like the right tool for the job and the lack of subject matter expertise around it on the UI team.
From a functionality perspective most of the APIs will be fairly simple database operations (CRUD) with perhaps some simplistic business logic applied on top (search for example).
I'm a bit intrigued by using Node.js for this as everyone on the team is really strong with Javascript. That being said I don't just want to hop on the semi-new technology bandwagon. Because it is enterprise software, unit testing frameworks, reusability, and extendability are all important considerations as well.
Any suggestions?
I realize this question was about technology options, but there's a fundamental concern that seems really important to call out:
From an organizational perspective I would like the current UI team to also have ownership of the API.
While this sounds like a logical approach, it may not work out well unless you're UI team is made up of really solid engineers. SaaS API development is arguably one of the most challenging aspects of modern software design. A great API will make everyone's lives easier, while a poor API will bring your system to its knees and leave you completely clueless as to why.
As a quick example, if you don't solve the end user's needs in the right way, you're likely to force a number of n+1 problems on them (and thus, on you.)
There is a bunch of great material out there about how to design great APIs and even more about the pitfalls of designing a bad one. Generally speaking, most of the UI devs I've worked with, particularly ones that are only familiar with scripting languages, are not people I would entrust to API design. Instead I would utilize them as customers (in a Scrum sense) who guide the design by describing end-user needs.
I faced something like this on a previous project, where we ended up going with a combo of Esper and our own DSL written using ANTLR 3.0. Our biggest concern with using a fully funcional runtime, was sandboxing the user's code.
That said, I think Node.JS would be one of the easier ones to sandbox and it fits your needs. Maybe using something like this: http://gf3.github.com/sandbox/ or looking into Cloud9's code to see how they keep things safe. I also like that with Node.js you could give your users a pretty niffy editor using Ace.
Also check out this post: How to run user-submitted scripts securely in a node.js sandbox?
I know this is a pretty open question but I was wondering how people go about writing scripts that will "play" a game, or manipulate it in some way. I had been thinking that I'd try to get a working AI to play a game for fun, but don't even really know where to start. Are there any good resources to learn this? What are good languages to use? Once I have the language, how do I get my script hooked into the game? I was thinking of just trying simple flash games, if that helps.
Thanks a bunch!
Are you looking to "play" an existing game, or write some sort of a game that can then be scripted?
If the former, you find that game's API and start writing code in the appropriate language. E.g. Unreal-powered games use UnrealScript and ship with the tools so you can embed new functionality. You're pretty much dependent on the game creators leaving an "in" such as this...
...unless you want to get totally nutty and hack the executable itself to execute your own code somehow. For information on how to do this, search for information on game "trainers". I'm not sure what a great set of search terms would be, but I know a lot of games do have trainers released, so type in "trainer <my_favorite_game>" and see what you get?
You can do this quite simply in Java 6.
expose your objects/functions in your Java app into the scripting environment
For example you can expose your character or the game world into the scripting environment and allow the script to control it.
invoke script functions/methods from Java environment
Allow the script to customize behaviours, add new actions, etc. Another use of this is to override the default build in game rules and load your own house rules. Another use is as a macro facility. Typically this would be part of the main game loop
use the script as a data/level file
For example, in a game likes SpaceHulk where it is mission based, you can use a script to define a game specific DSL, and us this DSL to define new missions. When the game starts up, it evaluates the data file and create a model of the game.
To integrate a scripting engine into Java, simply do this
ScriptEngineManager mgr = new ScriptEngineManager();
ScriptEngine jsEngine = mgr.getEngineByExtension("js");
jsEngine.eval("print('Hello world!');
To expose an object into the script environment
jsEngine.put("avatar", avatarObject);
//An avatar object is now available in myscript.js
jsEngine.eval(new FileReader("myscript.js");
To invoke a function in the script
jsEngine.eval("function hello(name) ... ");
Invocable inv = (Invocable)jsEngine;
inv.invokeFunction("hello", "Fred");
One of the problem with scripting is that, the script has access to your entire application. You can restrict what the script can 'see' by setting a classloader when you create the ScriptEngineManager instance.
Java 6 comes with a bundled JavaScript engine. However I prefer Groovy and loading Groovy basically mean changing 'js' in getEngineByExtension() to 'groovy'.
I know that a lot of people say that Java is not fast for games, but if you are writing turn based games or social games like Farmville then I think it is more than adequate.
For C/C++ based games, I think the preferred script engine is Lua. I've not used it so I cannot comment on it.
The best way to do that is to use the API provided by the game, if there is one. The Civilization games, for example, come with a very complete modding engine that allows you to script whatever you want. The same can be said for Age of Empires and a variety of other games.
Simple flash games, though? That'll be tough. Those don't generally provide any supported way to script, so you'll be left with simulating input. It'll be tough.
The easy way is to control mouse and keyboard functions with autoit. You can also read out information from your screen, but it is a bit limited It is good to just check if things changed or check whats on a certain area of the screen if you know there are a limited amount of possibilities. Not so easy to read and interpret text. Autoit is excelent to automate games like farmvile. I have also made blackjack bots for online casinos. And use it for small but mundane and repeating (manufacturing) tasks in RPGs. Dont expect to build an AI for an RTS or FPS though.
Autoit is easy to find with google. A fast and small download. Excelent documentation and you can learn it in days.
The hard way is what people wrote about above here i guess. Interacting with the game data. Searching information on that is what brought me here. I see its with C++ or Java. While the languages are all similar and you can use them all after learning 1, these come with complicated software environments that take lots of time to learn. The possibilities and chances to make something really reliable are much much greater though.
I maintain in-house business software for a living. Technologies included here are Java, Struts, Spring MVC, jsp, wicket, and a few others. I think it's time to branch out and learn something new.
I am hoping to show myself with a side project that writing code can, in fact, be fun (in some plane of the universe), and that I haven't wasted the past few years of my life doing something I can never love or have fun doing.
I'm thinking of having a fantasy-sport style web site - obviously much, much smaller with regards to features and all that. I was hoping I could get some recommendations for the newest or cleanest frameworks that will allow me to accomplish such a project. My goals are to work on following a real development process instead of just hacking a bunch of crap into an already crappy application on a daily basis. Also I will strive to follow best practices and create good, clean, understandable code that I don't shudder at the thought of having to modify. It's hard to do this at work, because the software I work on has already been developed by 50 guys from various continents that never took the time to design anything before jumping into coding.
I would need a simple database to store users and their picks for each event. Also at my job, the login security is all handled by another group completely. Do people usually write their own login systems from scratch, or are there open source utilities for that as well? I'd be interested in those, as my site will need to have a user login system, and be secure.
I had ruby and rails installed on my computer the last time I conjured up the motivation for this idea, but that was nixed by a hard drive crash. I figured before I just jumped straight to rails for this idea, that I would get a few other opinions off stack overflow to see if people liked something else that I didn't know about.
Also, if anyone has any good resources for how to think about OO design, I could brush up on that as well. I'm looking for anything that will help me to just think about the design from the start and how to get my thoughts into a diagram. I'd like it not to focus so much on patterns and other principles as much as just how to get started and actually put my thoughts in a professional document that I can use to build my project from. I tried to practice this prior to a card game that I wrote, and it got way too complicated way too fast, and the results ended up being not so great.
I’m more familiar with Django, although like you, the only frameworks I’ve really used are the Java/Struts/Spring/JSP, etc. The automatically generated administration interface in Django is amazing coming from these, and it comes with its own authentication system too.
Unless you’re especially predisposed against Python, I think you should give it a go.
Ruby on Rails, Python on Django, PHP on (not sure -- maybe Zend? or CakePHP?), are probably the most popular frameworks if I understand correctly that you want to learn a new language. If I misunderstood you, and you'd rather stick with Java, GWT seems pretty cool -- it's the only real way to avoid "explicitly" writing Javascript (if you DO want to learn and use some Javascript, I personally am in love with Dojo, but jQuery is substantially more popular: those are two good popular frameworks you should consider, though there are others of course, like for all languages I mentioned so far).
One advantage of picking Python and Django is that they work particularly well with Google App Engine (and with Dojo, too, thanks to the cool dojango project!) -- GAE supports JVM too, now, but it's supported Python for a much longer time and the Python side of it is more solid and complete at this time. So, if that's the technology stack you choose, you get to develop and deploy for free, on highly scalable infrastructure, at least until your app gets more than a few million page views per month -- and you really minimize your system adminsitration hassles, all you do is basically to code and write one simple configuration file.
I'm playing WoW for about 2 years and I was quite curious about Lua which is used to write addons. Since what I've read so far about Lua was "fast", "light" and "this is great", I was wondering how and when to use it.
What is the typical situation where you will need to embed a script language like Lua in a system ?
When you need end users to be able to define/change the system without requiring the system to rewritten. It's used in games to allow extensions or to allow the main game engine to remain unchanged, while allow content to be changed.
Embedded scripting languages work well for storing configuration information as well. Last I checked, the Mozilla family all use JavaScript for their config information.
Next up, they are great for developing plugins. You can create a custom API to expose to the plugin developers, and the plugin developers gain a lot of freedom from having an entire language to work with.
Another is when flat files aren't expressive enough. If you want to write data driven apps where behavior is parameterized, you'll get really tired of long strings of conditionals testing for config combinations. When this happens, you're better off writing the rules AND their evaluation into your config.
This topic gets some coverage in the book Pragramtic Programmer.
Lua is:
Lightweight
Easy to integrate, even in an asynchronized environment such as a game
Easy to learn for non-programmer staff such as integrators, designers and artists
Since games usually require all those qualities, Lua is mostly used there. Other sitation could be any application that needs some scripting functionality, but developers often opt for a little more heavy weight solution such as .Net or python.
In addition to the scripting and configurability cases mentioned, I would simply state that Lua+C (or Lua+C++) is a perfect match for any software development. It allows one to make an engine/usage interface where engine is done in C/C++ and the behaviour or customization done in Lua.
OS X Cocoa has Objective-C (C and Smalltalk amalgam, where language changes by the line). I find Lua+C similar, only the language changes by a source file, which to me is a better abstraction.
The reasons why you would not want to use Lua are also noteworthy. Because it hardly has a good debugger. Then again, people hardly seem to need one either. :)
a scripting language like Lua can also be used if you have to change code (with immediate effect) while the application is running. one may not see this in wow, because as far as i remember the code is loaded at the start (and not rechecked and reloaded while running).
but think of another example: webserver and scripting language - (thankfully) you can change your php code without having to recompile apache or restart apache.
steve yegge did that thing for his own mmorpg engine powering wyvern, using jython or rhino and javascript (can't remember). he wrote the core engine in java, but the program logic in python/javascript.
the effect of this is:
he doesn't have to restart the core engine when changing the scripts, because that would disconnect all the players
he can let others do the simpler programming like defining new items and monsters without exposing all the critical code to them
sandboxing: if an error happens inside the script, you may be able to handle it gracefully without endangering the surrounding application
Rapid development for application with real-time constraints. Computer games are one of these ;-)
It's a valid solution if you want to allow third parties to develop plug-ins or mods for your software.
You could implement an API in whatever language you are using, but a script language like LUA tends to be more simple and accessible for casual developers.
In addition to all the excellent reasons mentioned by others, Embedding Lua in C is very helpful when you need to manipulate text, work with files, or just need a higher level language. Lua has lots of nifty feature (Tables, functions are first class values, lots of other good stuff). Also, while lua isn't as fast as C or C++, it's pretty quick for an interpreted language.