I have the source code from a plugin for second life to play in a browser but the problem is it's been created for Firefox 3.5, so what I'm trying to do is to bring it up to speed and upgrade it to the current Firefox.
Unfortunately I'm not sure how to go about this as I am literally just looking into this now, any help is greatly appreciated
What's your main aim here? Are you interested in simply making the extension work somehow in the latest firefox or are you more interested in optimizing performance?
Optimization of an application is a very general topic. You can look into the upgrades Gecko has gone through in the recent versions. If there seems to be any specific module for which Gecko is now offering a better interface/compatibility, you might try adapting the same. Again, this is really the programmer's judgment and skill which lets him draw the boundary between feasible and non-feasible development. For a module which is extensively linked with many other modules, it might be a good idea to leave it as it is to avoid sleepless nights (of course that's just my opinion. For some, that is the real kick :D).
If you are interested in creating high-performance plugins, you might like to give Google Web Toolkit a try. It is a Java library which compiles java into optimized javascript introducing various performance oriented quirks. I understand that it is not possible to switch an entire application to GWT easily and wouldn't help you just now, but I think it is worth mentioning for future use.
On the other hand, if you are just interested in making the extension work, you may look into Nightly Tester Tools, which is an extension used to override add on compatibility.
Related
I've spent the better part of my morning and afternoon playing around with GUI frameworks in Haskell, as I need some visualization and interaction capabilities and I'm not in love with writing my core functionality in Haskell then piping out to a front end written in another GUI; I'd prefer to do it all from one language. The better part of that better part has been spent compiling and patching source code, or Googling obscure compilation errors.
I've spent plenty of time reading SO questions, plenty of time on haskell.org, and plenty of time reading documentation. What I've encountered is a very large swath of outdated or poorly documented information. I can boil it down to these three things:
A glut of options built on top of Gtk+ bindings. I don't care for Gtk+ very much, mostly because I find it to be quite unpleasant to look at, especially on OS X. Griping about the UI looking out of place and/or just plain ugly might seem silly, but that's important to me. Especially if I want other people to utilize any of the programs that I create.
wxHaskell, which is stable and incredibly easy to install but many of the existing tutorials seem to be for wx-0.1x and the conventions for bridging the wxWidgets 2.9.x docs to wx-0.90.x are very very spotty and hard to grok, when they even exist.
qtHaskell, which seems to be mostly abandoned (correct me if I'm wrong), only compiles with newer versions of GHC after applying a year-old patch, and spits out a massive amount of warnings that indicate they will soon become compile errors in newer versions of GHC.
In effect, I'm looking for Haskell's answer to Java's Swing; a library that is robust, maintained, well documented, easy to get started with, makes an attempt to be native in look and feel, can keep up with GHC's development pace, and not at high risk for abandonment. This seems to be exactly zero GUI frameworks, but then it seems that most of the "official" resources/wikis/pages/docs related to GUI frameworks are woefully unmaintained so I decided to turn to the community to see if there was something I just wasn't finding. I'm not terribly worried about the framework being cross platform, just so long as it works on modern versions of OS X.
To reiterate, I'm not really looking for someone to send me a link to haskell.org or the WikiBook. I've been there, and I didn't like what I saw. Most of the information there is just so out of date that it only creates more work, not less.
I realize that my "demands" are a little extreme, especially for a language with a smaller community like Haskell, but I was hoping that someone out there could be of assistance to me. In the mean time, I intend to simply try and ride out wxHaskell or qtHaskell until I succeed or die.
I hope I'm not coming across as gruff or frazzled.
wxHaskell is good, yes, and my go-to GUI middle level library. I admit there's been a focus on updating the code before the docs in the new version.
For modern, functional-reactive-programming fun stuff on top of it I gor for reactive banana, which is actively maintained, and has the added benefit that Heinrich Apfelmus himself may well turn up here to answer your questions.
Threepenny-gui is the most recent contender in the space of Haskell GUI libraries.
Its main selling point is that it is very easy to install, because it uses the web browser as a display. It's also easy to get started with.
On the other hand, it doesn't even attempt to have a native look and feel – the UI is built solely on HTML. (This may change in the future, as we have the option of using XUL). Also, the API is still very much in flux, so be prepared that new major versions of the library are likely to break backwards compatibility. (On the other hand, this means that it's actively developed. :-))
(Disclosure: I'm the author / maintainer of the threepenny-gui package.)
I feel your pain; this answer is an attempt to provide some alternatives that may be good enough and perhaps help you with your search.
First, there is a language called Concurrent Clean. It is supposed to be similar to Haskell, has GUI support and is meant for writing real-world applications. It differs in some respects; for instance, its I/O is based on unique types rather than Monads, which as far as I'm concerned, is a good thing :). Here is a link:
http://wiki.clean.cs.ru.nl/Clean
Next, I dug around for a Haskell compiled to the JVM, in the hopes that it would piggy-back on the Java libraries, ala Clojure. No dice. What I did find was a SO thread discussing the lack and the challenges thereof:
Haskell on JVM?
From that thread however, two other options were brought up. One is Frege:
http://code.google.com/p/frege/
The other is CAL:
https://github.com/levans/Open-Quark
There's also work on functional reactive programming in Haskell. It's supposed to enable things like GUIs, although whether or not you'll actually get a GUI out of it is another matter:
http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Functional_Reactive_Programming
It's sad. Here we have the JVM and .NET and yet zilch for Haskell. It's worse than that; .NET has shown an alarming tendency to ditch promising implementations. Whatever happened to IronScheme, IronLisp and IronHaskell? All dead as far as I can tell.
Not good :(
I am trying to work with FranTK in order to make some examples to work for class. But cant go further the installation process (cabal install may be to mainstream).
I've gotten it from http://src.gnu-darwin.org/ports/x11-toolkits/hs-frantk/work/
in the readme a directory above it says i need to compile TclHaskellSrc, then FranSrc, then FranTkSrc. but i dont know how.
It also says it works with ghc-5, will it work with ghc-7?
has someone already use it successfully?
FRAN is outdated, bitrotted, and will almost certainly not compile under GHC 7. (See Conal Elliott's page for confirmation of this.) It was supposed to have been followed up with successors Reactive and FieldTrip, but, if I remember correctly, these projects hit a snag over OpenGL implementation issues.
If you're looking for good demos of FRP animation, then you'll be better off with one of the following:
elerea - it's simple, and has several good examples
sodium - also simple, and also has several good examples
reactive-banana - More complex than the other two, and more intended for GUI programming than for animation. Still worth a look, as it is well-documented and actively maintained.
The state of the art for FRP used to be Yampa, but I'd recommend against using either it or its recent fork Animas, not because they're bad in any way, but rather because they use Arrows, which tend to overcomplicate an already-difficult subject.
Hope this helps.
Old thread, I know, but Elm (elm-lang.org) has come along in the meantime. It compiles down the JavaScript, supports animations easily, and is under active development.
I am a CS grad student, and I am interested in spending some spare time in getting involved with development of Mozilla Firefox web browser . I would like to contribute to HTML renderer , JavaScript engine etc. But I don't have any solid experience in writing parsers or similar stuff, and I don't have any clue from where to start.
There are of course some links in https://developer.mozilla.org/En/Developer_Guide/ but since Firefox is already is very huge project, I don't know from where I should start learning.
So, my question is what core things I need to learn first to get started with Web browser Development and from where I can learn this (any links)? Do I have to revise how to write parsers/compilers? How do I learn to write HTML renderer/ JavaScript engine? Is it even possible considering they are already very huge projects? Sometime back, I downloaded source code of V8 JavaScript engine (http://code.google.com/p/v8/) but I couldn't understand much from it's source code as it was highly optimized code, and there were no much useful comments for beginner like me to understand what going on.
Update:
I am fairly comfortable working with C, C++, Java, PHP, C#, VB.Net, JavaScript and I am more interested in learning how web browser parses an web page, how it constructs and maintains the DOM, how CSS is applied, how HTML reflow engine works, how it interacts with JavaScript engine, how it interacts with web server, how the components are drawn on the screen etc.
Read the docs on getting started. Hang out on irc.mozilla.org in #developers and watch for interesting conversations. Introduce yourself in #introduction and ask questions. Go to http://bugzilla.mozilla.org and start searching for open bugs in components that sound interesting, then look for bugs that catch your fancy. Use tools like http://mxr.mozilla.org/ and http://dxr.mozilla.org to help you locate the relevant code, and ask questions in #developers. Learn, hack, repeat.
I wrote a post about my experiences getting involved over the past year, and it seems to reflect the path that a significant amount of Mozilla developers took.
You might want to review a list of known bugs and see if you're able to fix them. Other possible way to get a foot in the door is to get involved in quality assurance tasks, which would help you learn better internals of the application.
Bugs marked in Bugzilla with the [good first bug] whiteboard status are a good place to start. You can view the list here.
Find something you like and try to fix it! The developers on IRC (#developers in irc.mozilla.org) are usually happy to help when you get stuck.
If you are interested in parsing, learn finite state automata and formal gramars, it should be part of your CS curriculum at some point, like in a compilers class. For the javascript part, study about JIT compilers, specially on how a tracing JIT works. Follow Mozilla development blogs, here is a good starting article:
http://hacks.mozilla.org/2010/03/a-quick-note-on-javascript-engine-components/
Finally, but not least importantly, try to contact people already working there, and try to build a mentor-pupil relationship, they can assign you tasks and can help if you get stuck when working on the code. Going to opensource conferences is a great way to meet the people behind a project and get started contributing.
Mozilla Developer Guide
Is VCL dead, or does it have a future as a GUI library? As CLX ended, is there any chance for cross-platform support in future releases?
I've had to do some work with legacy app that uses Borland's VCL(BCB6). Now that new features have to be implemented, it's necessary to revalue alternatives. Whether to stick with VCL or migrate to some other library/framework.
I've never read much what's happening in the field Embarcadero(Borland) tools. At least there seems to be only few VCL tagged questions here in SO and no much luck with google either.
Whether to continue using VCL in your project, or migrate to an alternative depends alot on your requirements. The VCL framework is powerful and mature, with lots of 3rd party components, which makes it a good idea to consider. The alternatives have been improving rapidly, and to point out one as the ultimate choice really requires you to carefully consider your requirements, and validate the strengths and weaknesses of the different frameworks.
Considering that cross platform is on the road map, I remind you that so has 64 bit support been for quite a while. We might see cross platform support, perhaps on schedule, perhaps delayed as we have seen with many previous features. I want to believe its coming because I truly like the VCL framework, but I always have a natural doubt concerning the official road map of the RAD studio series - sorry David. ;)
If you've researched the different alternatives, and found VCL to be the best choice based on its relevance to your project, then I'd consider using the VCL framework, especially if it is a framework you are familiar with. Learning a new framework can - while often a good idea - be a time consuming job. So even though there might be a risk of the framework not being held alive (as will there be with any alternatives) you might save a lot of work staying with the familiar framework, if it is the framework that suits your project the most.
If you do consider going with C++ Builder and the VCL, you might find that the C++ Builder Journal is a valuable source of information, they have a relatively quite forum, but with some interesting posts in it, and some free hints on their website: www.bcbjournal.com.
Of course there is also the embarcadero forums, and this site, it may be a good idea to search the Delphi forums and categories, since it seems there are more active users on these, and by far more posts. One good thing though, is that conversion from Delphi to C++ in VCL related questions is quite simple.
VCL is undergoing continued development.
Cross platform is on the current roadmap.
The embarcadero forums are still a valuable resource.
As a user of VCL I must say that your observations are truly correct. VCL might appeal to you, but the resources available compared to QT and other toolkits is poor at least esp. at SO. Our team have also found several bugs in their components, and have more than once patched components to make our application stable. Still for me the main reason to migrate is that VCL locks you in with a single set of development tools. I must admit that I have a hard time trying to find any really good reasons to continue to use it if you have the resources to migrate.
Given that bcc32 and its libraries is also very buggy, the lockin gets even more serious, The last months me and my team have spent more time fixing issues caused by the compiler than actually developing features. For me this is such a serious impediment that its cost overweight its benefits tenfold. Unfortunately the costs of migrating for us is so high that we at least for now have to endure its pains.
Right now I'm not sure...
I'd say yes. I'm using it. I know for a fact that Universal are using it on some of their (thousands of) sites. I will add some caveats, however:
There are serious problems with setting it up, especially if you want to debug into the libraries.
The helper functions favour prototype, as opposed to the more modern jQuery. This is changing rapidly, however.
The documentation is a bit chaotic, again the Castle Team are working on that.
I'm not guaranteeing every last "out-there" feature works, but the point of the system is actually to keep it simple.
Compared to vanilla ASP.NET, it's an absolute joy. I assure you that you won't miss viewstate.
We have been building a fairly large application with it for the past year and a half. Its been nice not to have to deal with the old ASP/Page based model and use the better Model/View/Controller design pattern.
To get the new stuff you really need to work off the trunk of development because they don't do releases very often. We have a lot of tests that get the framework involved so when an update in the framework breaks something we depend on we know about it immediately.
If you have to work in .NET this beats the heck out of the alternatives.
There is an overview on the monorail forum: http://forum.castleproject.org/viewforum.php?f=6
I'm using it for an application and haven't had any big issues with it.
The biggest problem is indeed find good documentation and examples.
I've had no problems setting it up. Julian, I don't think it is constructive to say things like "serious problems" without any further clarification or example.
Debugging into the libraries is trivial. Because it's open source, you can debug into the whole thing.
I've been using MonoRail for production for ages on many projects, as an employee, as an indie contractor, and for non-work related sites.
I know I'm biased on that, however I can whole heartedly promise that my positive usage experience is what lured me into contributing to the project, not the other way around.