Rob,
Quick update: I renamed the project to something shorter and catchier:
https://github.com/noah/ocelot
Also, here is the documentation, which describes in detail how to use
the (cross-platform) executable jar:
http://noah.github.com/ocelot/
Please check out the docs and let me know if anything doesn't work as expected.
Thanks!
-Noah
On Mon, Aug 13, 2012 at 8:39 PM, Noah Tilton <[email protected]> wrote:
> Hi Rob,
>
> New code is up at github. This update brings a more ruby-esque
> (idiomatic) syntax to the DSL, as well as better coverage of Text
> documents, Presentations, Lists, and Tables. I have also added
> documentation to about 80% of the code.
>
> https://github.com/noah/odf-command-line-tools
>
> Remaining todos: 1) work out additional docs and any needed function
> stubs 2) cross-platform installer. I think you will agree that the
> code is easily extendable as it stands.
>
> Paradoxically, bundling jruby/java jar codes together has proven to be
> the hard part, so I will focus on making it cross-platform in the next
> week.
>
> Please take a look and let me know your thoughts.
>
> Thanks!
> -Noah
>
> On Tue, Jul 10, 2012 at 8:58 AM, Noah Tilton <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Hi Rob,
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Jul 6, 2012 at 8:17 AM, Rob Weir <[email protected]> wrote:
>>> On Sun, Jul 1, 2012 at 5:30 PM, Noah Tilton <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>> Hi Rob,
>>>>
>>>> I just pushed to Github, please see below for an explanation of the
>>>> changes and some questions regarding next steps.
>>>>
>>>> https://github.com/noah/odf-command-line-tools
>>>>
>>>
>>> Great. I downloaded and gave it a try. Looks good.
>>>
>>>> On Sun, Jun 3, 2012 at 12:47 PM, Rob Weir <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> OK. Thanks for trying. Maven is great for managing Java project
>>>>> dependencies. Well, at least for pure Java projects targeting
>>>>> standard Java outputs like JAR's, WAR's, EAR's, etc. But the
>>>>> Java/JRuby combination may be more complicated.
>>>>>
>>>>> I'm using Ubuntu 11.04 with bash. It isn't liking parts of that
>>>>> script. But I was able to modify it as follows and it worked fine:
>>>>>
>>>>> #!/bin/sh
>>>>>
>>>>> if [ ! -d ./jars ]; then
>>>>>
>>>>> echo "Downloading jars"
>>>>> mkdir -p ./jars
>>>>> cd jars
>>>>>
>>>>> wget
>>>>> http://mirrors.gigenet.com/apache//xerces/j/binaries/Xerces-J-bin.2.11.0.tar.gz\
>>>>>
>>>>> http://apache.osuosl.org/incubator/odftoolkit/binaries/odftoolkit-0.5-incubating-bin.tar.gz
>>>>>
>>>>> for targz in *.tar.gz; do
>>>>> echo "Extracting $targz"
>>>>> tar zxf $targz
>>>>> done
>>>>>
>>>>> cd ..
>>>>> fi
>>>>>
>>>>> echo "Running test"
>>>>>
>>>>> JAVA_HOME="$(dirname $(dirname $(readlink -f $(which java))))"
>>>>> echo "set JAVA_HOME to $JAVA_HOME"
>>>>> CLASSPATH=./jars/xerces-2_11_0/xercesImpl.jar:./jars/xerces-2_11_0/xml-apis.jar:./jars/odftoolkit-0.5-incubating/simple-odf-0.7-incubating.jar:./jars/odftoolkit-0.5-incubating/odfdom-java-0.8.8-incubating.jar
>>>>> export CLASSPATH
>>>>>
>>>>> jruby lib/oclt.rb
>>>>
>>>> I incorporated your portability changes to test.sh, and renamed it to
>>>> setup.sh, to reflect the fact that it doesn't actually run the code --
>>>> it merely downloads jars and sets environment variables. To run the
>>>> code from the odf-command-line-tools directory, type:
>>>>
>>>> source ./setup && jruby main.rb
>>>>
>>>> "source" is necessary because the script needs to export shell
>>>> variables in the parent shell (i.e., not a subshell).
>>>>
>>>> If you want to use rdoc to build the documentation you may need to run:
>>>>
>>>> % jruby -S gem install rdoc
>>>>
>>>> before running
>>>>
>>>> % rdoc --main *
>>>>
>>>> from the top level directory (odf-command-line-tools).
>>>>
>>>>> Two things: build env and runtime env. For runtime env we should be
>>>>> cross platform, right? For bulld env, cross platform is ideal, but I
>>>>> would not get bogged down on that. Linux is fine.
>>>>
>>>> Yes, Linux for build only; runtime will be cross-platform. Added to TODO
>>>>
>>>>> I'm looking forward to seeing more on the DSL.
>>>>
>>>> The initial version of the DSL has support for generating new Text
>>>> documents; loading modifying existing Text documents, iterating over
>>>> Paragraphs, changing mode and font attributes of new Paragraphs ...
>>>> This first version should give you a flavor of what the DSL might
>>>> eventually look like, and I hope it is general enough that we can
>>>> easily add other document types (e.g., Presentation).
>>>>
>>>> It's made up of 2 parts: the DSL proper (lib/oclt.rb) and a client
>>>> script (main.rb).
>>>>
>>>> Assuming you're okay with what I've done so far, I'd like the
>>>> discussion to focus on how the mapping of DSL methods => SimpleAPI
>>>> methods should look. A 1-1 mapping works "out of the box" with the
>>>> way the DSL is currently written. I.e., any SimpleAPI TextDocument
>>>> method can now be called from the DSL, and will work.
>>>>
>>>
>>> I noticed that. I had not taken a close look at Ruby before, but I'm
>>> impressed by how that kind of dispatch can be set up with only a
>>> little code.
>>
>> I like it too!
>>
>>>> So if we don't want to change the interface/API, all that's left to do
>>>> is write documentation and more examples. But that won't provide much
>>>> of an improvement over the original Java API, only those benefits
>>>> which Ruby provides at the most basic level before any "sugar" is
>>>> applied. In other words, while a 1-1 mapping works, it leads to
>>>> unnecessary initialization, overall verbosity, and (IMHO) is exactly
>>>> what a good DSL should seek to avoid!
>>>>
>>>
>>> Right. So is your goal to make this me more "idiomatic" Ruby? Or to
>>> create a DSL that is either Ruby nor Simple API, but something more
>>> oriented to text processing?
>>
>> Yes, idiomatic Ruby is the way to go. I'd go one step further and say
>> "idiomatic Ruby DSL-esque". There are many good examples, Rake and
>> Buildr come to mind. This still leaves us a lot of freedom to tweak.
>>
>>> When we were designing the Simply API we tried to make it as easy and
>>> intuitive as possible, within the constraints of Java, and using an
>>> imperative programming style.
>>>
>>> One idea I had last night -- what if we inverted the problem? Instead
>>> of a command line script running against the document, what if we put
>>> the script *inside* the document? Does that help with any kinds of
>>> repetitive tasks, document automation, etc.? Now the mere location of
>>> the script doesn't matter. But a side benefit is that a script inside
>>> the document, inline in the text of a document, has a context that the
>>> user defines naturally via their word processor:
>>>
>>> "This confirms your order for %widget_count% widget(s)."
>>>
>>> This is then processed by a command line took that evaluates
>>> widget-count as a Ruby routine. Or we want to avoid the user writing
>>> code, what if we ultra-simplified it? For example, a document
>>> template that had some named styles that expressed both
>>> appearance/presentation as well as behaviour. Trivial example: a
>>> list style called "Sorted List". No word process has this, to my
>>> knowledge. But we could have that defined as a style. When the user
>>> applies it, nothing magic occurs. But later, on the command line, the
>>> document is processed by an app that applies the behaviours implied by
>>> the styles, and writes out a new document. One could do very simple,
>>> single-step operations that way. But is there a way to build up more
>>> complicated scenarios like this? In other words, what helps enable
>>> the power-user, scripter type to get some benefit of document
>>> automation?
>>
>> I think this idea could work. And it's consistent with the codebase
>> we already have. We could define some tags and a parser that would
>> call out to the jruby routines in the lib/oclt.rb file (that's just a
>> sketch, but I think it works). I can see a couple of problems with
>> this approach, however. First is tight coupling -- do we really want
>> the business logic inline with an XML document describing the
>> structure? Second is, how does something like this jive with the ODF
>> standard? It seems like embedding a bunch of tags into the document
>> might mess that up.
>>
>>>> As a next step, I propose creating a more concise set of keywords for
>>>> the TextDocument API, and working from there. I'm hoping we can
>>>> iterate very fast now that there is a working version. If we can come
>>>> up with (or better yet, find) some conventions for how to map a
>>>> standard API to a DSL, I can use that and hit the list when I have
>>>> specific questions.
>>>>
>>>> For an example of what I'm talking about, do we really need to say
>>>> "set_horizontal_alignment(HorizontalAlignmentType)" or will "center"
>>>> suffice? Should that really be done instead as a parameter in
>>>> add_paragraph()? (e.g., doc.add_paragraph(:alignment => :center)).
>>>> Should we let it work both ways for flexibility
>>>>
>>>
>>> Right.
>>>
>>>> At the same time, we don't want to take the sugar too far -- the
>>>> interface should be logical to end users without being too "cute". A
>>>> couple of examples of things I changed/added are:
>>>>
>>>> page_break instead of add_page_break; paragraphs as a new iterable
>>>> method.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Right. All else being equal, it is best to be idiomatic Ruby.
>>>
>>> Another question: Are there any other Ruby libraries that it would
>>> make sense to bring in to the mix? For example, any that are text or
>>> language related, or even NLP? Google Translate interface? Stuff
>>> like that that would radically extend the capabilities with little
>>> incremental coding on your part.
>>
>> The code is an internal DSL whose host language is jRuby. Therefore,
>> any C Ruby code can be used -- just require a Gem, external library,
>> or part of the standard library. And because it's jRuby, Java
>> libraries and core are fair game, and really anything that can be
>> compiled into Java bytecode should work. Very flexible.
>>
>>>> The heavy lifting in the code is currently being done in the file
>>>> lib/oclt.rb, specifically the method_missing call. Inside I have some
>>>> logic that tests whether a certain method exists at runtime, and if it
>>>> does, delegates appropriately. If the method doesn't exist the
>>>> program bombs out, but there's no reason not to make it do something
>>>> more intelligent, like search the SimpleAPI for a method which is
>>>> similar to or begins with the given method name, and then perhaps give
>>>> the user an informative error message.
>>>>
>>>> More formally, I think the code as written is (loosely) an
>>>> implementation of the Adapter pattern
>>>> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adapter_pattern) but using open classes
>>>> rather than an explicit adapter class. In ruby this can be done a
>>>> number of ways, I was going for brevity.
>>>>
>>>> I invite your feedback, and the rest of the community too. Thanks and
>>>> enjoy the 4th!
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Noah
>>
>> I'm going to keep hacking on the DSL in the main branch, and work out
>> a more idiomatic syntax and more examples. I'll aim for 100% Simple
>> API coverage (in terms of idiomatic functionality but with a more
>> idiomatic API; although the Simple API calls will still be available).
>> In addition, I will create a separate branch for your "embedded tags"
>> idea and see how it looks. I've got a dead laptop at home, but I'll
>> try to get you something by the end of the week.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> --
>> Noah
>
>
>
> --
> Noah
--
Noah
