Hi, I have was able to implement Sven's suggestion and it worked pretty well regarding the serialization of objects containing clean blocks, as you can see on [1].
[1] https://mutabit.com/repos.fossil/dots/file?name=brea/theme.ston&ci=trunk A Brea theme is now represented in a pretty light weight way as a STON text file containing a base theme (taken from HTML5Up [2], for now), with name, provider, license and preview, a folder with customizations to that theme (mostly by adding Mustache[3] templates to particular base theme locations) and a set of operations which are mainly clean blocks with a name, modeled as BreaOperators, that will be chained in a particular order to update parts or all the website. Once the site has been updated Fossil is used to store, publish, distribute and versioning the web site, allowing us time travel back to or restore a previous version, provides a JSON API to query website repository's data, and could allow us to collect some date (issues, forms, comments). The combination of Pharo and Fossil creates a pretty versatile light solution that is kind of in between a Static Site Generator and a headless Content Management System thanks to the way we can manage static assets and also live code queries or extend data models and operations. I'm pretty happy with the possibilities shown by this early prototype. [2] https://html5up.net/ [3] https://mustache.github.io/ I imagine that there is a way to extend STON to do pretty printing of serialized blocks (I will try to locate some time to experiment on this later, as I'm still finishing bureaucratic paperwork and year's end deadlines with urgent stuff taking time from important one). But I just want to show how cool is STON supporting these use cases and say thanks again for making such endorphins enhancer digital tech! ( ┏(･o･)┛♪┗ (･o･) ┓). Finally on Stephen's idea of pull request to Sven's STON booklet, I don't think that I have enough knowledge to make a significant contribution, beyond typos I can find as a non-native, mostly self-taught English "speaker". But I will be glad to make contributions to some "Use Case Appendix", briefly showcasing how STON has been a powerful enabler for Grafoscopio's interactive notebooks and now for Brea's theme definition, including data operations and transformations. Cheers, Offray On 1/12/20 10:08 a. m., Offray Vladimir Luna Cárdenas wrote: > Hi Sven, > > Thanks for your swift and useful response as usual and yes, not only it > helps a lot but teach too (as usual with your answers). > > I will be dealing with some bureaucratic last minute, hard deadline > notification I just got yesterday from my university (following local > "tradition" in public institutions of total disregard of everybody's > schedule and time)... Anyway, I will be having opportunity to test your > suggestions until next week, after deadline. > > I understand the concerns about not serializing code blocks. So far they > have not been a necessity for me (as code snippets are stored as > "playground trees" in the Grafoscopio notebooks), but I would like to > explore this approach before considering something more complex (like > Metacello/Iceberg packages for the Brea web themes). > > I have been using some minor modifications on objects to serialize them, > mainly to store playground contents as strings, and they have worked > fine until now, but I was learning all along the way and they could be > just a not good practice from my file scripting times/needs. > > Cheers, > > Offray > > On 1/12/20 4:54 a. m., Sven Van Caekenberghe wrote: >> Hi Offray, >> >> This is a recurring question. BlockClosures are way too general and powerful >> to be serialised. That is why serialising BlockClosures is not supported in >> STON. >> >> The code inside a block can refer to and even affect state outside the >> block. Furthermore the return operator is quite special as it returns from >> some outer context. >> >> A subset of BlockClosures are those that are clean. These do not close over >> other variables, nor do they contain a return. By using their source code >> representation, it is possible to serialise/materialise them. >> >> You can try this by adding the following methods: >> >> BlockClosure>>#stonOn: stonWriter >> self isClean >> ifTrue: [ stonWriter writeObject: self listSingleton: self printString ] >> ifFalse: [ stonWriter error: 'Only clean blocks can be serialized' ] >> >> BlockClosure>>#stonContainSubObjects >> ^ false >> >> BlockClosure class>>#fromSton: stonReader >> ^ self compilerClass new >> source: stonReader parseListSingleton; >> evaluate >> >> With these additions you can do the following: >> >> STON fromString: (STON toString: [ :x :y | x + y ]). >> >> Note that the actual class name depends on the Pharo version (BlockClosure >> in Pharo 7, FullBlockClosure in Pharo 9 and maybe soon CleanBlockClosure - >> Marcus is working on that last one and that would be very cool because it >> would say exactly what it it). >> >> I am still not 100% convinced to add this as a standard feature to STON. >> Using source code fully exposes the implementation, while using the compiler >> can be dangerous. It also adds a dependency on source code and the compiler. >> But it would be good if people can experiment with this feature. >> >> Does this help you ? >> >> Regards, >> >> Sven >> >> PS: I would not modify an object just to serialise it. >> >>> On 30 Nov 2020, at 18:19, Offray Vladimir Luna Cárdenas >>> <offray.l...@mutabit.com> wrote: >>> >>> Hi, >>> >>> I'm using STON for all my light storage serialization needs, like the >>> Grafoscopio notebooks, and I also love it, as Russ stated in their mail >>> question, and I share with him a similar request: for my Brea[1] static >>> site generator I would like to store some BreaQuery objects as external >>> STON files, and recover them, so I can run the queries that >>> recreate/update the website easily. I could store them as Grafoscopio >>> notebooks, but I don't want to make Grafoscopio a prerequisite for Brea >>> or I could use Fuel, but I would like to store queries as a diff >>> friendly text based format. I have considered Metacello/Iceberg packages >>> to export code in a diff friendly format, but It maybe overkill. So I >>> would like to see if STON can serve me here too. >>> >>> [1] https://mutabit.com/repos.fossil/brea/ >>> [2] https://mutabit.com/repos.fossil/indieweb/ >>> >>> So far, I'm able to serialize a code block as a string using: >>> >>> BreaQuery>>asStonModified >>> self codeBlock: self codeBlock asString >>> ^ STON toStringPretty: self >>> >>> But I'm unable to populate a block from a string. There is any way to >>> make a string, lets say 'a + b', to become the code contents of a block, >>> ie: [a + b ] ? >>> >>> Thanks, >>> >>> Offray >>>
