Hi Chris,
Hi Niclas,
@Niclas:
Basically Chris answered all those questions as I would. I also looked at Meta
Languages like Haxe but there usually where some drawbacks.
But what we discussed was the idea to generate the DSL or the AST from python
code (very limited python code), so that our DSL would be equivalent to a
subset of Python (which would allow easy and efficient debugging and such).
@Chris:
I wrote this email rather longish to ensure, that you don’t get me wrong. I see
both approaches simply as two contenders for the best one, and indeed we should
evolve both and then discuss (and finally VOTE) which route to follow, this is
the way to do it.
And regarding the "in-between" I agree with you. I can imagine that DFDL is the
way to go for the messages and types and that we replace the SCXML with
something which comes out of our approach.
And with "head exploding" we did not mention some of your works but simply the
thought to develop a SCXML description of a complex protocol, so please don’t
take this as any offence.
To the two other statements... I do not want to couple project stuff with
students work its just a possibility to explore things more in depth and e.g.
develop some tooling which is not strictly necessary but nice to have.
And for the private Repo... It also felt wrong for me to write this. And
strictly speaking its not a PLC4X Paper but a Paper which "talks about" PLC4X.
The main reason for the private repo are license concerns as the authors
usually have to hand over several rights to the Publisher which would not be
possible in case of the Apache License. You don’t have to like that but that’s
how it works.
Currently, I see it as an research engagement of Matthias and myself but want
to invite everybody to participate but (also for the reason above) would not
make it a central concern of the project.
I hope you can agree on that?
Julian
Am 29.04.19, 10:05 schrieb "Christofer Dutz" <christofer.d...@c-ware.de>:
Hi All,
to answer Niclas' question first ... yes a lot of tools allow writing code
in for example Java and have that compiled to c-like programs.
I had a look at a lot of these options before starting to work on PLC4X and
continued since then.
I was never quite happy with the results. While the performance of the
original is ... well ... 100% you usually have great losses on the cross
compiled outputs. Also there is the problem that the cross-compiled version
usually needs quite a lot more resources as the original and especially as the
native implementation.
For example when writing Raw-Socket code in java, we use some extra hoops
to do so, in C, C++, C# (maybe even python) we could directly use the network
hardware. So depending on the language you use and the platform you build for
the drivers could be quite different.
And regarding the API: We would be translating an API of one language to
others ... what would we use for C support? Mapping Java to C isn't trivial and
the result would be quite evil looking, I bet. The way we were currently
planning on doing things, would be to manually implement an API module that
perfectly fits for the language we are targeting and to generate the drivers
for that language.
Regarding Julian's proposal:
Well if you wouldn't be spawning new initiatives that bind me with
preparing the build all the time, I would have a chance to actually work on my
proposal ;-) (Haven't worked on that for weeks)
Also didn't I ever have the chance to explain it to anyone yet, so calling
it a "mind detonator" is a little unfair, cause I think it's a lot simpler than
our current hand-written drivers. I do agree that a specially hand-crafted and
well implemented DSL for exactly this use-case will probably be easier, but you
would have to implement the DSL first and then the tooling (Keep in mind with
Daffodil/DFDL we get a full blown toolkit to write unit-tests and document the
protocol). I was trying to use, what's already out there, cause I knew that
inventing something that achieves 90% of what you are doing is super-easy,
however to get to 100% you need to put in great efforts.
I would be the last to object in general, but I wouldn't want to rely on a
student project where we have to wait till someone else finishes something and
hope that he does. Especially if the key-person in charge of this initiative
seems to have great problems communicating on this list (Me "waiving with a
fence pole" here :-P). I would only call it a PLC4X Paper, if it's actually
done by involving the community ... and doing that in a private repo isn't
quite the way we do things at Apache. So for this to be a real Apache
initiative ... do it in public and do discussions on the list.
So if I finally manage to clean up and prepare the build for the
multi-language part ... please at least give me the chance to work on my
proposal a little more and at least explain what I had planned.
I would suggest you work on the other option and then we let the community
decide which path to take. I am really fond of the DFDL part, but not so
overwhelmed by the SCXML part of my proposal... perhaps the ideal solution
would be something in-between.
Chris
Am 29.04.19, 08:53 schrieb "Niclas Hedhman" <nic...@hedhman.org>:
Outsider looking in; Many language runtimes allows embedding of other
languages' runtimes within. So why not pick a languages that is
reasonably
easy to integrate into other languages, and then write the drivers in a
fully fledged programming language, rather than the DFDL abstraction or
creating a new DSL with a whole slew of consequences later on.
Languages that might be suitable; JavaScript, Lua, Forth, microPython or
even C...
Niclas
On Mon, Apr 29, 2019 at 2:20 PM Julian Feinauer <
j.feina...@pragmaticminds.de> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> just wanted to sum up some talks and discussions we had off-list
about the
> whole topic of driver generation / providing drivers in other
languages.
> Currently, there are the following two approaches going on:
>
> Driver Generation based on DFDL by Chris:
> Chris already shared his branch and is working on the generation of
> drivers based on the specification of the messages and a state
machine.
> This should then generate Code based on Freemarker Templates.
>
> Proxy Drivers by me, Chris and also others:
> We have a thrift based server / client spec.
> A simple Java Server is implemented as Interop Server and we work on
> providing client in other languages.
> This is a separate feature (as Proxy) but in a mode, where the Client
> itself starts the server in the background, this is an intermediate
> solution to already provide other language bindings (although at a
cost).
> All work is done in the PLC4X-111 branch and I hope that we will be
able
> to Merge that soon (Chris spend a lot of effort to include all the new
> stuff in our build).
>
> And there is a new thing coming currently which is mostly Driven by
> Matthias and myself regarding the driver code generation.
> We went over Chris example code (and the xmls) and our heads nearly
> exploded as it is so abstract.
> And as Matthias does a lot with model based code generation we had a
long
> discussion about using a model based approach (probably with a DSL).
> So we currently try to investigate that a bit but also with a focus on
> research. In fact, we have the potential that we can engage some
students
> from his institute to participate at the work.
> In fact, we even started a private Repo where we prepare a Paper to
> discuss the matter.
> As this would be our first “PLC4X Paper” everybody is invited to join
us
> and should simply ping me (with github credentials), to get repo
access.
> If we make it through we will will of course list everybody who
> contributed as author.
>
> To make it clear, this work, the DSL based driver generation tries to
> achieve the same as Chris approach based on DFDL just through another
way.
> And right now I’m unable to say which one is better, could be better
and
> where are the drawbacks and advantages. So we want to investigate
that to
> have a basis for a discussion and decision. In fact, both approaches
should
> be equally powerful, so one could be able to translate one to the
other and
> vice versa, in theory.
> I consider it highly important to have a good and easy way to develop
and
> maintain drivers as this is the crucial thing for the future of PLC4X.
>
> So please feel free to comment or discuss, if you feel like : )
>
> Julian
>
--
Niclas Hedhman, Software Developer
http://polygene.apache.org - New Energy for Java
