[aida] First impressions

[Janko Mivšek]

Hi Edward,

First let me welcome to the Aida world. And we appreciate any fresh 
impressions views on Aida, because those views help improving it most, 
so please continue with them.

Answers to your questions are below.


Edward Stow wrote:

> preferedURL
> -----------------
> My application requires RESTful urls and bookmarkable urls.  The
> caching of object / url references caused me some delay while working
> on my own application.
> 
> Suggestion:  Add a documentation note to the tutorial on how to reset
> the cache. (If you had user comments section on your documentation,
> this note would have been added by now.)
> 
> Is it necessary to cache the references at all.  Is this a performance
> issue or part of the basic design?
> Could this be a configuration option for a production system.

By "caching" you probably mean an URLResolver and his memory of 
Url-object mappings. If you want to remove some object from here, use

	AIDASite default urlReslover removeObject: myObject.

If you like to change Url to a new prefered one, just do

	AIDASite default urlReslover changeToPreferedURL: myObject

Or did I miss your point?


> WebApplication  >> observee
> -----------------------------------------
>  --- I know that names are only names but it was not until I realized
> that your observee is what many other mvc frameworks would call the
> model.  In my mind model objects are designed to be observed.  I would
> have found a comment to this effect helpful in the documentation.

Agree, that point more to clarify better in documentation. Tutorial was 
not clear enough on that?

> Error reporting on the web page.
> ---------------------------------------------
> Make an error that causes a dnu -- the page should display some
> diagnostics on the error.  The debugger stack would be useful at
> least.  Seaside really excels in this area - being able to jump to the
> debugger, fix and proceed.

This is done better in VW but on Squeak I don't yet understand exception 
management well. In VW you got an UHE window while on browser you got 
500 internal server error. And UHE stays there until you come around and 
look at it, usually with a whole stack preserved. Tha't really very 
handy for maintenance of production servers, where you usually come 
around later and not exactly at the time of user having an error. I 
propose that we did the same on Squeak too whila adding a debugging in a 
web browser I don't find very usefull from end user standpoint. Maybe 
from developer, but again, this is more "cool" that useful IMO.

> So far I'm enjoying the experience ...

Nice to hear that!

JAnko


-- 
Janko Mivšek
AIDA/Web
Smalltalk Web Application Server
http://www.aidaweb.si