Re: Long-Awaited FreeMarker 3 Preview Available
On Sun, Nov 12, 2023 at 12:01 PM Daniel Dekany wrote: > To clarify, he calls it simply "FreeMarker" (no "Apache" in it), and it's > from a branch that was made (and then was abandoned for, I guess, 12 years, > or so) long before donation to Apache. Right. Thanks for making that point. Though I would correct your referring to this as being a "branch". Actually, it was the trunk! But regardless, that was the 2.4 codebase which was never hosted at Apache. > But, with the donation to ASF, > "FreeMarker" is the trademark of the ASF. > Well... I've seen this claimed, and one would assume it's true. But a few years ago, I was trying to see whether there really was a trademark registered. I don't really know much about these sorts of issues, but there are these database lookups you can do online and I could never find any proof that ASF really registered the trademark. Well, maybe they did. I honestly don't know. But, hey, it costs money to register a trademark. So maybe they just figured they could save that money by just claiming that they registered it and never did. I mean, who's going to notice after all? LOL. But, you know, finally, I don't really care about this much. You see, sometimes, it takes me a while to figure out certain things, so it took a good while for it to dawn on me that the whole idea that I'm in some breach of contract with ASF by using the name FreeMarker... it's a very dubious idea. Even at the risk of playing lawyer, let me explain my thinking about this. A contract between two parties is when one party promises something in exchange for the other party providing something. So you sell your house and the buyer gives you X money and you give them the house and the contract makes explicit certain things about whatever, like what date you'll vacate the premises and that you are providing them the house with no "lien", A mortgage in this case. Things like this, right? If I just tell you that I'm giving you my house in exchange for *absolutely nothing*, that's not really a contract. Certainly, not in British Common Law. Actually, you'll notice if you study your history that these very unequal treaties imposed on Indian tribes or what was imposed on Mexico after the Mexican-American war, there is actually some quid pro quo. Like, even after defeating the Mexicans thoroughly in the war, they did not take California and Texas etcetera for nothing. They paid (probably a symbolic amount admittedly) for these territories. The same applies to the Brits taking over Hong Kong after whatever "Opium War". In British common law, there has to be "consideration" for something to be a contract. I honestly don't remember what I signed back then (I think around 2014.) Possibly I did promise that I wasn't going to use the name "FreeMarker" but I'm not sure, because, to be honest, I probably didn't even read it. But the fact remains that if I promise something in exchange for ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, it's very hard to see how I am in any breach of contract, because there never really was a binding contract. If ASF had given me some derisory symbolic amount, like a hundred dollars or something, one might think they had a bit more of a case, but when there is ZERO "consideration" in the so-called "contract" I honestly just don't see it. So, my intuition is that any legal case that ASF tried to bring against me would have a very very flimsy basis. I actually doubt they'll even try. There's a lot of bluff in all this. ASF, frankly, is kind of a big edifice of flim-flam, which makes me suspect that they never even registered the trademark either! But do understand, that I don't even care hardly. The bottom line is that I'm just going to do whatever I do. You all might as well understand, sooner rather than later, that I don't recognize the authority of anybody here to tell me what I can or can't do. That way, you can save yourselves a lot of time and emotional energy. Thanks, Jon (See https://github.com/freemarker/freemarker3/wiki for information about FreeMarker 3. CongoCC parser generator: https://github.com/congo-cc/congo-parser-generator) > > On Sun, Nov 12, 2023 at 6:45 AM wrote: > > > Hi, Jonathan, > > > > First of all, I am disappointed to see all the personal attacks from you > > here. There is no cause of need for this. > > Let’s keep civilized. > > > > The major issue here I believe is that (at least in my perception) you > are > > trying to take the project out of Apache, > > but not following the rules for doing so (are there rules?). > > > > You can’t have your cake and eat it too. IMHO you can’t call it Apache > > Freemarker and not follow Apache rules. > > > > Of course, you can make a fork and innovate from there, but I don’t think > > you can call that Apache FreeMarker. > > > > In other words: > > - You can contribute to the project Apache way > > - Don’t call your fork Apache Freemarker > > > > You can’t have both. > > > > > On Nov 9, 2023, at 7:50 PM, Jonathan Revusky >
Re: Long-Awaited FreeMarker 3 Preview Available
Thanks Jonathan for all the details. I'll have a deeper look... Jacques Le 12/11/2023 à 22:03, Jonathan Revusky a écrit : On Fri, Nov 10, 2023 at 8:02 AM Jacques Le Roux < jacques.le.r...@les7arts.com> wrote: Hi Jonathan, Salut, Jacques. What about existing projects using the Apache version ? Well, what about them? The basic problem is here not very different from the decision to upgrade to a newer, not 100% backward compatible version of whatever, like moving from Python 2.x to Python 3.x. Now, one thing to be clear about is that in its out-of-the-box configuration, practical NO existing Apache FreeMarker template will work with the newer version. That's because, by default, directives like <#assign..> and <#local...> don't work. But if you put <#ftl legacy_syntax> up top in your template, then they do work. But anyway, the thing is that there are different levels of user. If you have a very basic usage pattern, like you just build up some data model that is a tree of hashes and maps ending in scalars (strings and numbers) and you expose that data model to your templates... well, the truth of the matter would surely be that there is very little difference between FreeMarker 2 and FreeMarker 3. Now, there are massive differences under the hood and this is now very largely a rewrite, but what I mean is that a user with a very simplistic usage pattern, (which actually could well be the majority of users!) just would likely not notice much difference. Though, again, they would have to use the legacy_syntax configuration or just about nothing will work! Since my announcement, I put up a new page which tries to gather together all the new features in one spot. That is here: https://github.com/freemarker/freemarker3/wiki/Summary-of-New-Features I mean the move from 2.3 version to 2.4. Like: 1. Would it be an easy move? Well, again, this is a very nuanced question because there are different kinds of users. As I say, if you have a very basic vanilla usage pattern it probably is an easy move. In fact, most likely your templates will continue to work with no changes (or close to none) in the legacy_syntax mode, but even getting them to work without that is probably not so hard. But, of course, the flip side to that is that, yes, it would probably be quite easy to upgrade, but if your usage of the thing is that simple, then there may not be much benefit either! That's true enough. Now, on the other hand, if you are what is popularly called a "power user", really pushing the limits in terms of what the tool can do, then I would say that almost certainly you should try to move to the newer version. (Even if it will be harder initially.) That is for a variety of reasons. If you're a power user, and you are hitting limits in what the tool can do, and you suggest a new feature, well, let's face it. The likelihood of that new feature being implemented in "Apache FreeMarker" is extremely low. The version that is now being actively developed is FreeMarker 3, and if somebody has an idea that seems well motivated it is very likely that I'll implement it. But the other aspect is that the codebase is so much cleaner that it is easy now. I don't know what your level of familiarity with the code is, but you would likely know that the grammar/parser part was written using this rather old tool called JavaCC. FreeMarker 3 is written using CongoCC, which is a vastly more advanced version of JavaCC. CongoCC started as a fork of JavaCC but is now a total rewrite. But, to give you an example of what I'm talking about, that page I linked mentions various new features. Let's take the ternary operator as an example. Here is where it is implemented: https://github.com/freemarker/freemarker3/blob/master/src/parser/Expressions.inc.ccc#L95 or here, for example, is where the #assert and #exec directives are implemented: https://github.com/freemarker/freemarker3/blob/master/src/parser/Directives.inc.ccc#L417-L459 So, the point is that, what with using a much more powerful parser generator tool, and the codebase being so cleaned up, it is extremely easy to implement new features, certainly compared to trying to do it against the 2.3 codebase. So, in particular, for anybody who really aspires to develop more of a relationship with the code, the FreeMarker 3 codebase is really where it's at. That's clear enough. Again, I don't know what your understanding level of the code is, but there were things that were really a bear to deal with in the legacy codebase, like all this wrapping/unwrapping of variables. That's all gone. It also means that a lot of things do actually just work more simply because you're just working with Java objects, not all this wrapped TemplateXXXModel nonsense. So, when write: #var myList = [1, 2, 3] the object constructed is not some weird wrapper object. It's just a plain old java.util.List (an ArrayList to be precise) you can just write: #exec myList::add(1, "foo") #-- Look,
Re: Long-Awaited FreeMarker 3 Preview Available
Hello Jonathan and All, Please excuse my limited knowledge of the project's history. If we assume the software is indeed improved as stated, it seems logical to consider integrating this work back into Apache Freemarker. Perhaps it could be done through a distinct branch or versioning strategy. This approach could capitalize on Apache's infrastructure and community, thereby extending these improvements to a wider audience and allowing greater adoption. It also addresses potential confusion regarding naming and versioning. Should there be some reservations in the community about merging these changes, then we can start a discussion. This dialogue could be more constructive than maintaining two pieces of code. Those are my thoughts and I'd love to hear yours and the rest of the fine folks here. Best, Taher AlkhateebOn Monday, November 13, 2023 01:18 +03, Jonathan Revusky wrote: On Fri, Nov 10, 2023 at 8:29 PM Benjamin Marwell wrote: > >> It can never be on Maven central, because the namespace (groupid) > >> "freemarker" is already claimed by Apache Freemarker. > >> > > > Well, Ben... it is kind of disrespectful to talk > such blatant nonsense > to > > somebody. This is supposed to be some serious technical forum, isn't it? > > Interesting how you contradict yourself in the next paragraph. You can > chose another groupid, of course. > Well, I can't figure out what you're talking about. If the groupid is a unique identifier, and org.freemarker is taken, then we have to use a different one. So what But really, I'm actually just totally bemused. I have been trying to figure out what your point is. One would think that you sincerely believe that people out there should saddle themselves with something that is obsolete and inferior simply because the people in question control "freemarker.org" or whatever such reason that is entirely non-technical! On the one hand, it's hard to believe that you seriously believe this, but then I started thinking about the history of this whole project. In the early days, our main competitor was this thing called "Jakarta Velocity", now called "Apache Velocity", I guess. I mean, it's not a secret that I had something of a chip on my shoulder about that, because that Velocity thing was so horrendously inferior that it was just kind of infuriating to be competing with it. But anyway, now that I think about all that again, it really does seem that these Velocity people seriously believed that people should use their inferior dreck because it was on apache.org or something. It was utterly inferior but it just got increasingly inferior because the people there did not do any work at all to try to compete with us technically. Absolutely nothing. Month after month. Year after year. But that's all ancient history, I guess. But the whole idea that people should use "Apache FreeMarker" because Apache FreeMarker is in possession of the freemarker.org domain and thus the org.freemarker groupid I mean that's just so crazy, of course... Well, I guess the thing that is especially infuriating about it is that there really are all these people out there who do seem to reason like this! For whatever reason, they won't consider using something unless it comes from what they perceive as an "approved channel". Something like that... That's a real phenomenon, but there's nothing I can do about that anyway, so... Well, in this case, I do have to make a best effort to get people to understand that Apache FreeMarker is just an older, inferior version of work by the same person. ME! But when you start talking this stuff about the "Apache FreeMarker" project having the "org.freemarker" groupid and that is somehow something so important... well, it's one of these "WTF" moments, as in: WTF is wrong with this guy? I mean, it's about such a level of bizarre cynicism. "Oh, they should use this because it's the real thing to use because we have the freemarker.org domain and..." Well, I beg to differ. But look, what do I know? I just wrote the damned thing basically. LOL. I mean, this guy Taher asked me why I am not doing this work on FreeMarker 3 inside of apache.org. Well, certainly somebody who didn't know the history of this whole thing would naturally ask me that. That's understandable. So I tried to fill him in. But anyway, it's such an exercise in masochism, dealing with certain personality types. And you, Ben, are not the worst by any means. This other guy who came out of the woodwork, Lenny, really seems to have escaped from the pages of a comic book! But, okay, fine. I can't do the work I'm doing because I don't own the freemarker.org domain or the org.freemarker groupid because that's really important. And regardless, people should use some totally inferior version of the thing (that it so happens I myself wrote as well!) because... > But you presented your project as "freemarker", and the current root > package is "freemarker" in your project. And I think I spotted
Re: Long-Awaited FreeMarker 3 Preview Available
On Fri, Nov 10, 2023 at 8:29 PM Benjamin Marwell wrote: > >> It can never be on Maven central, because the namespace (groupid) > >> "freemarker" is already claimed by Apache Freemarker. > >> > > > Well, Ben... it is kind of disrespectful to talk > such blatant nonsense > to > > somebody. This is supposed to be some serious technical forum, isn't it? > > Interesting how you contradict yourself in the next paragraph. You can > chose another groupid, of course. > Well, I can't figure out what you're talking about. If the groupid is a unique identifier, and org.freemarker is taken, then we have to use a different one. So what But really, I'm actually just totally bemused. I have been trying to figure out what your point is. One would think that you sincerely believe that people out there should saddle themselves with something that is obsolete and inferior simply because the people in question control "freemarker.org" or whatever such reason that is entirely non-technical! On the one hand, it's hard to believe that you seriously believe this, but then I started thinking about the history of this whole project. In the early days, our main competitor was this thing called "Jakarta Velocity", now called "Apache Velocity", I guess. I mean, it's not a secret that I had something of a chip on my shoulder about that, because that Velocity thing was so horrendously inferior that it was just kind of infuriating to be competing with it. But anyway, now that I think about all that again, it really does seem that these Velocity people seriously believed that people should use their inferior dreck because it was on apache.org or something. It was utterly inferior but it just got increasingly inferior because the people there did not do any work at all to try to compete with us technically. Absolutely nothing. Month after month. Year after year. But that's all ancient history, I guess. But the whole idea that people should use "Apache FreeMarker" because Apache FreeMarker is in possession of the freemarker.org domain and thus the org.freemarker groupid I mean that's just so crazy, of course... Well, I guess the thing that is especially infuriating about it is that there really are all these people out there who do seem to reason like this! For whatever reason, they won't consider using something unless it comes from what they perceive as an "approved channel". Something like that... That's a real phenomenon, but there's nothing I can do about that anyway, so... Well, in this case, I do have to make a best effort to get people to understand that Apache FreeMarker is just an older, inferior version of work by the same person. ME! But when you start talking this stuff about the "Apache FreeMarker" project having the "org.freemarker" groupid and that is somehow something so important... well, it's one of these "WTF" moments, as in: WTF is wrong with this guy? I mean, it's about such a level of bizarre cynicism. "Oh, they should use this because it's the real thing to use because we have the freemarker.org domain and..." Well, I beg to differ. But look, what do I know? I just wrote the damned thing basically. LOL. I mean, this guy Taher asked me why I am not doing this work on FreeMarker 3 inside of apache.org. Well, certainly somebody who didn't know the history of this whole thing would naturally ask me that. That's understandable. So I tried to fill him in. But anyway, it's such an exercise in masochism, dealing with certain personality types. And you, Ben, are not the worst by any means. This other guy who came out of the woodwork, Lenny, really seems to have escaped from the pages of a comic book! But, okay, fine. I can't do the work I'm doing because I don't own the freemarker.org domain or the org.freemarker groupid because that's really important. And regardless, people should use some totally inferior version of the thing (that it so happens I myself wrote as well!) because... > But you presented your project as "freemarker", and the current root > package is "freemarker" in your project. And I think I spotted the groupId > "freemarker" in your ant build file. With that configuration, my claim is > technically correct (from the perspective when I wrote it). Sonatype will > restrict access to the freemarker namespace (groupId) to Apache committers > now. > So, as I said, I'll use a different "groupid". So what? As for calling the project "freemarker", well, that's what it is! This is a continuation of the main stream of development. God knows why Daniel Dekany chose to take the maintenance branch code over here and relabel it as "Apache FreeMarker" and leave the SVN trunk abandoned. (Well, God knows and Daniel knows as well, but I get the feeling that neither of them are going to tell us why.) > > > For reasons that I can only speculate about, when Daniel Dekany took the > > FreeMarker code to Apache > > Instead, please focus on not blaming Daniel or me or anyone else here. > Well, why
Re: Long-Awaited FreeMarker 3 Preview Available
On Fri, Nov 10, 2023 at 8:02 AM Jacques Le Roux < jacques.le.r...@les7arts.com> wrote: > Hi Jonathan, > Salut, Jacques. > > What about existing projects using the Apache version ? > Well, what about them? The basic problem is here not very different from the decision to upgrade to a newer, not 100% backward compatible version of whatever, like moving from Python 2.x to Python 3.x. Now, one thing to be clear about is that in its out-of-the-box configuration, practical NO existing Apache FreeMarker template will work with the newer version. That's because, by default, directives like <#assign..> and <#local...> don't work. But if you put <#ftl legacy_syntax> up top in your template, then they do work. But anyway, the thing is that there are different levels of user. If you have a very basic usage pattern, like you just build up some data model that is a tree of hashes and maps ending in scalars (strings and numbers) and you expose that data model to your templates... well, the truth of the matter would surely be that there is very little difference between FreeMarker 2 and FreeMarker 3. Now, there are massive differences under the hood and this is now very largely a rewrite, but what I mean is that a user with a very simplistic usage pattern, (which actually could well be the majority of users!) just would likely not notice much difference. Though, again, they would have to use the legacy_syntax configuration or just about nothing will work! Since my announcement, I put up a new page which tries to gather together all the new features in one spot. That is here: https://github.com/freemarker/freemarker3/wiki/Summary-of-New-Features > > I mean the move from 2.3 version to 2.4. Like: > > 1. Would it be an easy move? > Well, again, this is a very nuanced question because there are different kinds of users. As I say, if you have a very basic vanilla usage pattern it probably is an easy move. In fact, most likely your templates will continue to work with no changes (or close to none) in the legacy_syntax mode, but even getting them to work without that is probably not so hard. But, of course, the flip side to that is that, yes, it would probably be quite easy to upgrade, but if your usage of the thing is that simple, then there may not be much benefit either! That's true enough. Now, on the other hand, if you are what is popularly called a "power user", really pushing the limits in terms of what the tool can do, then I would say that almost certainly you should try to move to the newer version. (Even if it will be harder initially.) That is for a variety of reasons. If you're a power user, and you are hitting limits in what the tool can do, and you suggest a new feature, well, let's face it. The likelihood of that new feature being implemented in "Apache FreeMarker" is extremely low. The version that is now being actively developed is FreeMarker 3, and if somebody has an idea that seems well motivated it is very likely that I'll implement it. But the other aspect is that the codebase is so much cleaner that it is easy now. I don't know what your level of familiarity with the code is, but you would likely know that the grammar/parser part was written using this rather old tool called JavaCC. FreeMarker 3 is written using CongoCC, which is a vastly more advanced version of JavaCC. CongoCC started as a fork of JavaCC but is now a total rewrite. But, to give you an example of what I'm talking about, that page I linked mentions various new features. Let's take the ternary operator as an example. Here is where it is implemented: https://github.com/freemarker/freemarker3/blob/master/src/parser/Expressions.inc.ccc#L95 or here, for example, is where the #assert and #exec directives are implemented: https://github.com/freemarker/freemarker3/blob/master/src/parser/Directives.inc.ccc#L417-L459 So, the point is that, what with using a much more powerful parser generator tool, and the codebase being so cleaned up, it is extremely easy to implement new features, certainly compared to trying to do it against the 2.3 codebase. So, in particular, for anybody who really aspires to develop more of a relationship with the code, the FreeMarker 3 codebase is really where it's at. That's clear enough. Again, I don't know what your understanding level of the code is, but there were things that were really a bear to deal with in the legacy codebase, like all this wrapping/unwrapping of variables. That's all gone. It also means that a lot of things do actually just work more simply because you're just working with Java objects, not all this wrapped TemplateXXXModel nonsense. So, when write: #var myList = [1, 2, 3] the object constructed is not some weird wrapper object. It's just a plain old java.util.List (an ArrayList to be precise) you can just write: #exec myList::add(1, "foo") #-- Look, ma! No brackets! And then your list contains [1, "foo", 2, 3] (Not that I'm even saying that the above is
Re: Long-Awaited FreeMarker 3 Preview Available
To clarify, he calls it simply "FreeMarker" (no "Apache" in it), and it's from a branch that was made (and then was abandoned for, I guess, 12 years, or so) long before donation to Apache. But, with the donation to ASF, "FreeMarker" is the trademark of the ASF. On Sun, Nov 12, 2023 at 6:45 AM wrote: > Hi, Jonathan, > > First of all, I am disappointed to see all the personal attacks from you > here. There is no cause of need for this. > Let’s keep civilized. > > The major issue here I believe is that (at least in my perception) you are > trying to take the project out of Apache, > but not following the rules for doing so (are there rules?). > > You can’t have your cake and eat it too. IMHO you can’t call it Apache > Freemarker and not follow Apache rules. > > Of course, you can make a fork and innovate from there, but I don’t think > you can call that Apache FreeMarker. > > In other words: > - You can contribute to the project Apache way > - Don’t call your fork Apache Freemarker > > You can’t have both. > > > On Nov 9, 2023, at 7:50 PM, Jonathan Revusky wrote: > > > > On Thu, Nov 9, 2023 at 9:00 PM Benjamin Marwell > wrote: > > > >> I never knew there was an "original" freemarker project. > >> > > > > So you actually thought that FreeMarker was developed at Apache? > > > > Well, no. FreeMarker is a very very old project at this point. > FreeMarker 1 > > was originally written by a guy named Benjamin Geer, in the late 90's. > > Though Ben Geer was, strictly speaking, the original author, I don't > think > > he was really involved in the project for very long. He wasn't involved > > when I showed up in the community in late 2001 anyway. At that point, I > > basically took over, and within a few months, the thing was a complete > > rewrite. And that was when FreeMarker 2.0 came into being. From 2002 to > > 2004/2005 we went through 4 release cycles, 2.0, 2.1, 2.2, and 2.3. Each > > release cycle added quite a bit more functionality. It is kinda sad that > > there is just about no meaningful difference between 2023 "Apache > > FreeMarker" and FreeMarker 2.3 from 2005 (or even late 2004). > > > > But the thing to understand is that this Apache FreeMarker code, the > > continuation of the FreeMarker 2.3 codebase, is really something very > > ancient. Most of the work on this was done in the period from 2002 to > 2005 > > or so, about a decade before there was any "Apache FreeMarker". > Basically, > > the project was very old and stagnant at that point and came to Apache to > > die, I guess. So I've decided to resuscitate it. Or give it my best > shot... > > > > > >> Your web site is down, the documentation on the GitHub project is > sparse. > >> > > > > That is true at the moment but is all quite remediable -- especially if > > some people want to get involved and do some heavy lifting. (I get the > > feeling that's not you!) In any case, I said quite clearly that this is a > > preview. You can't expect something that is a preview to be as polished > as > > something as old as FreeMarker 2.3, which has been pretty stable since > 2004 > > or thereabouts! > > > > > >> There is no way to tell whether it really is more advanced or not. > >> > > > > Well, frankly, this is just nonsense. There is no legitimate controversy > > over whether this version of FreeMarker is more advanced or not. Of > course > > it is. As I explained in the previous note in response to Taher > Alkhateeb, > > it is built on top of the 2.4 codebase, while Apache FreeMarker is a > > continuation of the 2.3 codebase. Aside from that, just scan over the > > commit record: https://github.com/freemarker/freemarker3/commits/master > > Truth told, over the last few months, I have effected something close to > a > > complete rewrite. > > > > But this is just ridiculous! Tell me, do you think there is some > legitimate > > controversy over whether JDK 8 is more advanced than JDK 7? That's just > > silly. In any case, both FreeMarker 2.3 and this FreeMarker 3.0 preview > > that I just announced are largely my work. Is it possible that an earlier > > version of work by the same author is more advanced than the later > version? > > Does that make any sense? Of course this version is more advanced! > > > > It can never be on Maven central, because the namespace (groupid) > >> "freemarker" is already claimed by Apache Freemarker. > >> > > > > Well, Ben... it is kind of disrespectful to talk such blatant nonsense to > > somebody. This is supposed to be some serious technical forum, isn't it? > > > > The "groupid" used on Maven Central is not something with any real > > transcendence at all. It certainly has no technical meaning. I mean, > look, > > here is an example. The main OSS project I'm working on, as I said > before, > > is CongoCC. A few months ago, our project (finally!) put out an > "artifact" > > on Maven Central. That is here: > > > https://central.sonatype.com/artifact/org.congocc/org.congocc.parser.generator > > I later realized that
Re: Long-Awaited FreeMarker 3 Preview Available
Hi, Jonathan, First of all, I am disappointed to see all the personal attacks from you here. There is no cause of need for this. Let’s keep civilized. The major issue here I believe is that (at least in my perception) you are trying to take the project out of Apache, but not following the rules for doing so (are there rules?). You can’t have your cake and eat it too. IMHO you can’t call it Apache Freemarker and not follow Apache rules. Of course, you can make a fork and innovate from there, but I don’t think you can call that Apache FreeMarker. In other words: - You can contribute to the project Apache way - Don’t call your fork Apache Freemarker You can’t have both. > On Nov 9, 2023, at 7:50 PM, Jonathan Revusky wrote: > > On Thu, Nov 9, 2023 at 9:00 PM Benjamin Marwell wrote: > >> I never knew there was an "original" freemarker project. >> > > So you actually thought that FreeMarker was developed at Apache? > > Well, no. FreeMarker is a very very old project at this point. FreeMarker 1 > was originally written by a guy named Benjamin Geer, in the late 90's. > Though Ben Geer was, strictly speaking, the original author, I don't think > he was really involved in the project for very long. He wasn't involved > when I showed up in the community in late 2001 anyway. At that point, I > basically took over, and within a few months, the thing was a complete > rewrite. And that was when FreeMarker 2.0 came into being. From 2002 to > 2004/2005 we went through 4 release cycles, 2.0, 2.1, 2.2, and 2.3. Each > release cycle added quite a bit more functionality. It is kinda sad that > there is just about no meaningful difference between 2023 "Apache > FreeMarker" and FreeMarker 2.3 from 2005 (or even late 2004). > > But the thing to understand is that this Apache FreeMarker code, the > continuation of the FreeMarker 2.3 codebase, is really something very > ancient. Most of the work on this was done in the period from 2002 to 2005 > or so, about a decade before there was any "Apache FreeMarker". Basically, > the project was very old and stagnant at that point and came to Apache to > die, I guess. So I've decided to resuscitate it. Or give it my best shot... > > >> Your web site is down, the documentation on the GitHub project is sparse. >> > > That is true at the moment but is all quite remediable -- especially if > some people want to get involved and do some heavy lifting. (I get the > feeling that's not you!) In any case, I said quite clearly that this is a > preview. You can't expect something that is a preview to be as polished as > something as old as FreeMarker 2.3, which has been pretty stable since 2004 > or thereabouts! > > >> There is no way to tell whether it really is more advanced or not. >> > > Well, frankly, this is just nonsense. There is no legitimate controversy > over whether this version of FreeMarker is more advanced or not. Of course > it is. As I explained in the previous note in response to Taher Alkhateeb, > it is built on top of the 2.4 codebase, while Apache FreeMarker is a > continuation of the 2.3 codebase. Aside from that, just scan over the > commit record: https://github.com/freemarker/freemarker3/commits/master > Truth told, over the last few months, I have effected something close to a > complete rewrite. > > But this is just ridiculous! Tell me, do you think there is some legitimate > controversy over whether JDK 8 is more advanced than JDK 7? That's just > silly. In any case, both FreeMarker 2.3 and this FreeMarker 3.0 preview > that I just announced are largely my work. Is it possible that an earlier > version of work by the same author is more advanced than the later version? > Does that make any sense? Of course this version is more advanced! > > It can never be on Maven central, because the namespace (groupid) >> "freemarker" is already claimed by Apache Freemarker. >> > > Well, Ben... it is kind of disrespectful to talk such blatant nonsense to > somebody. This is supposed to be some serious technical forum, isn't it? > > The "groupid" used on Maven Central is not something with any real > transcendence at all. It certainly has no technical meaning. I mean, look, > here is an example. The main OSS project I'm working on, as I said before, > is CongoCC. A few months ago, our project (finally!) put out an "artifact" > on Maven Central. That is here: > https://central.sonatype.com/artifact/org.congocc/org.congocc.parser.generator > I later realized that somebody else had previously put up a Maven artifact. > That is here: > https://central.sonatype.com/artifact/com.clickhouse/org.congocc Funny > enough, the guy who put that up was not even in touch with us about it > beforehand. But the one we put up is, I guess, under org.congocc and the > one put up earlier by a third party is under com.clickhouse, which I guess > is the URL he controls or his employer, or... I dunno... Actually, I just > looked, and there is a patched version of FreeMarker
Re: Long-Awaited FreeMarker 3 Preview Available
>> It can never be on Maven central, because the namespace (groupid) >> "freemarker" is already claimed by Apache Freemarker. >> > Well, Ben... it is kind of disrespectful to talk > such blatant nonsense to > somebody. This is supposed to be some serious technical forum, isn't it? Interesting how you contradict yourself in the next paragraph. You can chose another groupid, of course. But you presented your project as "freemarker", and the current root package is "freemarker" in your project. And I think I spotted the groupId "freemarker" in your ant build file. With that configuration, my claim is technically correct (from the perspective when I wrote it). Sonatype will restrict access to the freemarker namespace (groupId) to Apache committers now. > For reasons that I can only speculate about, when Daniel Dekany took the > FreeMarker code to Apache Instead, please focus on not blaming Daniel or me or anyone else here. - Ben On Fri, 10 Nov 2023, 02:51 Jonathan Revusky, wrote: > On Thu, Nov 9, 2023 at 9:00 PM Benjamin Marwell > wrote: > > > I never knew there was an "original" freemarker project. > > > > So you actually thought that FreeMarker was developed at Apache? > > Well, no. FreeMarker is a very very old project at this point. FreeMarker 1 > was originally written by a guy named Benjamin Geer, in the late 90's. > Though Ben Geer was, strictly speaking, the original author, I don't think > he was really involved in the project for very long. He wasn't involved > when I showed up in the community in late 2001 anyway. At that point, I > basically took over, and within a few months, the thing was a complete > rewrite. And that was when FreeMarker 2.0 came into being. From 2002 to > 2004/2005 we went through 4 release cycles, 2.0, 2.1, 2.2, and 2.3. Each > release cycle added quite a bit more functionality. It is kinda sad that > there is just about no meaningful difference between 2023 "Apache > FreeMarker" and FreeMarker 2.3 from 2005 (or even late 2004). > > But the thing to understand is that this Apache FreeMarker code, the > continuation of the FreeMarker 2.3 codebase, is really something very > ancient. Most of the work on this was done in the period from 2002 to 2005 > or so, about a decade before there was any "Apache FreeMarker". Basically, > the project was very old and stagnant at that point and came to Apache to > die, I guess. So I've decided to resuscitate it. Or give it my best shot... > > > > Your web site is down, the documentation on the GitHub project is sparse. > > > > That is true at the moment but is all quite remediable -- especially if > some people want to get involved and do some heavy lifting. (I get the > feeling that's not you!) In any case, I said quite clearly that this is a > preview. You can't expect something that is a preview to be as polished as > something as old as FreeMarker 2.3, which has been pretty stable since 2004 > or thereabouts! > > > > There is no way to tell whether it really is more advanced or not. > > > > Well, frankly, this is just nonsense. There is no legitimate controversy > over whether this version of FreeMarker is more advanced or not. Of course > it is. As I explained in the previous note in response to Taher Alkhateeb, > it is built on top of the 2.4 codebase, while Apache FreeMarker is a > continuation of the 2.3 codebase. Aside from that, just scan over the > commit record: https://github.com/freemarker/freemarker3/commits/master > Truth told, over the last few months, I have effected something close to a > complete rewrite. > > But this is just ridiculous! Tell me, do you think there is some legitimate > controversy over whether JDK 8 is more advanced than JDK 7? That's just > silly. In any case, both FreeMarker 2.3 and this FreeMarker 3.0 preview > that I just announced are largely my work. Is it possible that an earlier > version of work by the same author is more advanced than the later version? > Does that make any sense? Of course this version is more advanced! > > It can never be on Maven central, because the namespace (groupid) > > "freemarker" is already claimed by Apache Freemarker. > > > > Well, Ben... it is kind of disrespectful to talk such blatant nonsense to > somebody. This is supposed to be some serious technical forum, isn't it? > > The "groupid" used on Maven Central is not something with any real > transcendence at all. It certainly has no technical meaning. I mean, look, > here is an example. The main OSS project I'm working on, as I said before, > is CongoCC. A few months ago, our project (finally!) put out an "artifact" > on Maven Central. That is here: > > https://central.sonatype.com/artifact/org.congocc/org.congocc.parser.generator > I later realized that somebody else had previously put up a Maven artifact. > That is here: > https://central.sonatype.com/artifact/com.clickhouse/org.congocc Funny > enough, the guy who put that up was not even in touch with us about it > beforehand. But the one we put up
Re: Long-Awaited FreeMarker 3 Preview Available
> I never knew there was an "original" freemarker project. See https://freemarker.apache.org/history.html On Thu, Nov 9, 2023 at 9:00 PM Benjamin Marwell wrote: > I never knew there was an "original" freemarker project. > Your web site is down, the documentation on the GitHub project is sparse. > There is no way to tell whether it really is more advanced or not. > > It can never be on Maven central, because the namespace (groupid) > "freemarker" is already claimed by Apache Freemarker. > > - Ben > > Am Do., 9. Nov. 2023 um 18:40 Uhr schrieb Taher Alkhateeb > : > > > > > > I'm a little confused. Why aren't we joining efforts on the apache > version? Why make it "a pity if a wider group of > > people never get the benefit of this work"? Am I missing something too > obvious or too old or something? Is this code base completely incompatible? > Is this a technical issue? > > > > Taher Alkhateeb > > > > On Wednesday, November 08, 2023 04:03 +03, Jonathan Revusky < > revu...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Greetings, > > > > I thought to let people know that there is a vastly more advanced version > > of FreeMarker available here: https://github.com/freemarker/freemarker3 > > > > You can build it via: > > > > git clone https://github.com/freemarker/freemarker3.git > > cd freemarker3 > > ant > > > > Or, if you want, there is a prebuilt jarfile you can grab here: > > https://parsers.org/download/freemarker.jar > > > > Though it is actually a rather superficial new feature, I think that one > > thing that people will enjoy is the new terser syntax. Basically, if a > > directive starts a line (aside from whitespace) there is no need for any > > pointy (or square) brackets. So you can just write: > > > > #if foo == bar > > blah blah > > /#if > > > > You can look here for a more complete description: > > https://github.com/freemarker/freemarker3/wiki/Terse-Syntax and here is > an > > example of a template from the old test suite rewritten using the terser > > syntax: > > > https://github.com/freemarker/freemarker3/blob/master/src/freemarker/testcase/template/test-switch.html > > > > In this version of FreeMarker, the #assign and #local directives (though > > they still work in a backward-compatible mode) were replaced with the > newer > > #var and #set. This is (IMHO) a significant improvement and is described > > here: https://github.com/freemarker/freemarker3/wiki/Strict-Vars > > > > Just generally speaking though, the biggest changes are really under the > > hood and would not be so visible to the casual user. This FreeMarker > > codebase has been refactored so that it largely does away with all of > those > > TemplateXXXModel wrappers and mostly just directly uses POJOs. (Plain Old > > Java Objects.) This is described here: > > https://github.com/freemarker/freemarker3/wiki/Under-the-Hood > > > > Various longstanding annoyances, like not being able to directly use a > map > > with non-string keys, have been addressed. > > > > Oh, it suddenly occurs to me that many (perhaps most) people on this > > mailing list do not know who I am. I am effectively the original author > of > > FreeMarker. I say "effectively" because there was a FreeMarker 1.x, which > > was really little more than a weekend hack. The version that 99% of > > FreeMarker users have used, which is 2.x, was a complete rewrite and is > > largely my work. > > > > As for other questions about what is going on with this, for example, > why I > > have put some renewed effort into FreeMarker after all years... well, my > > main open source efforts have been going into my rewrite of that old > JavaCC > > parser generator that FreeMarker 2.x was originally built with. The new > > version of JavaCC was originally called FreeCC, then when I resuscitated > it > > a few years ago, I called it JavaCC 21, but it is now rebranded as > CongoCC. > > So, since FreeMarker is a key part of CongoCC, I found myself adding the > > occasional new feature to FreeMarker (my own version, not Apache > > FreeMarker). For example, the feature described here > > https://github.com/freemarker/freemarker3/wiki/Macros-as-Functions was > > added to support CongoCC development back in 2020, but probably a lot of > > FreeMarker users would appreciate this. > > > > So, at some point, I did rework FreeMarker to use CongoCC instead of the > > legacy JavaCC. CongoCC is a much, much more powerful parser generator > than > > the original JavaCC, so it makes FreeMarker development comparatively a > > breeze. For example, I quite recently implemented assertions in > FreeMarker > > and this is where it is implemented: > > > https://github.com/freemarker/freemarker3/blob/master/src/parser/Directives.inc.ccc#L417-L445 > > > > Or here is where ternary expressions are implemented: > > > https://github.com/freemarker/freemarker3/blob/master/src/parser/Expressions.inc.ccc#L98-L118 > > You really should compare the FreeMarker grammar expressed with CongoCC > to > > the one that was written with legacy
Re: Long-Awaited FreeMarker 3 Preview Available
Hi Jonathan, What about existing projects using the Apache version ? I mean the move from 2.3 version to 2.4. Like: 1. Would it be an easy move? 2. What does it brings? 3. What are the pros and cons of each version? 4. etc. I guess that's not easy questions to answer to (4 being somehow a joke ;), but they are fundamental. TIA Jacques Le 10/11/2023 à 02:50, Jonathan Revusky a écrit : On Thu, Nov 9, 2023 at 9:00 PM Benjamin Marwell wrote: I never knew there was an "original" freemarker project. So you actually thought that FreeMarker was developed at Apache? Well, no. FreeMarker is a very very old project at this point. FreeMarker 1 was originally written by a guy named Benjamin Geer, in the late 90's. Though Ben Geer was, strictly speaking, the original author, I don't think he was really involved in the project for very long. He wasn't involved when I showed up in the community in late 2001 anyway. At that point, I basically took over, and within a few months, the thing was a complete rewrite. And that was when FreeMarker 2.0 came into being. From 2002 to 2004/2005 we went through 4 release cycles, 2.0, 2.1, 2.2, and 2.3. Each release cycle added quite a bit more functionality. It is kinda sad that there is just about no meaningful difference between 2023 "Apache FreeMarker" and FreeMarker 2.3 from 2005 (or even late 2004). But the thing to understand is that this Apache FreeMarker code, the continuation of the FreeMarker 2.3 codebase, is really something very ancient. Most of the work on this was done in the period from 2002 to 2005 or so, about a decade before there was any "Apache FreeMarker". Basically, the project was very old and stagnant at that point and came to Apache to die, I guess. So I've decided to resuscitate it. Or give it my best shot... Your web site is down, the documentation on the GitHub project is sparse. That is true at the moment but is all quite remediable -- especially if some people want to get involved and do some heavy lifting. (I get the feeling that's not you!) In any case, I said quite clearly that this is a preview. You can't expect something that is a preview to be as polished as something as old as FreeMarker 2.3, which has been pretty stable since 2004 or thereabouts! There is no way to tell whether it really is more advanced or not. Well, frankly, this is just nonsense. There is no legitimate controversy over whether this version of FreeMarker is more advanced or not. Of course it is. As I explained in the previous note in response to Taher Alkhateeb, it is built on top of the 2.4 codebase, while Apache FreeMarker is a continuation of the 2.3 codebase. Aside from that, just scan over the commit record:https://github.com/freemarker/freemarker3/commits/master Truth told, over the last few months, I have effected something close to a complete rewrite. But this is just ridiculous! Tell me, do you think there is some legitimate controversy over whether JDK 8 is more advanced than JDK 7? That's just silly. In any case, both FreeMarker 2.3 and this FreeMarker 3.0 preview that I just announced are largely my work. Is it possible that an earlier version of work by the same author is more advanced than the later version? Does that make any sense? Of course this version is more advanced! It can never be on Maven central, because the namespace (groupid) "freemarker" is already claimed by Apache Freemarker. Well, Ben... it is kind of disrespectful to talk such blatant nonsense to somebody. This is supposed to be some serious technical forum, isn't it? The "groupid" used on Maven Central is not something with any real transcendence at all. It certainly has no technical meaning. I mean, look, here is an example. The main OSS project I'm working on, as I said before, is CongoCC. A few months ago, our project (finally!) put out an "artifact" on Maven Central. That is here: https://central.sonatype.com/artifact/org.congocc/org.congocc.parser.generator I later realized that somebody else had previously put up a Maven artifact. That is here: https://central.sonatype.com/artifact/com.clickhouse/org.congocc Funny enough, the guy who put that up was not even in touch with us about it beforehand. But the one we put up is, I guess, under org.congocc and the one put up earlier by a third party is under com.clickhouse, which I guess is the URL he controls or his employer, or... I dunno... Actually, I just looked, and there is a patched version of FreeMarker 2.3.29 put up by Liferay, which is this one: https://central.sonatype.com/artifact/com.liferay/org.freemarker But the point is that it just doesn't matter! The whole idea that I can't put something on Maven Central because this nothingburger project controls the freemarker.org domain... Well, okay, I guess it's true that we can't use "org.freemarker" as a groupid since it's taken but... so what? So we use something else. (Duh.) When I decided on CongoCC as a new name for the parser generator project, I
Re: Long-Awaited FreeMarker 3 Preview Available
On Thu, Nov 9, 2023 at 9:00 PM Benjamin Marwell wrote: > I never knew there was an "original" freemarker project. > So you actually thought that FreeMarker was developed at Apache? Well, no. FreeMarker is a very very old project at this point. FreeMarker 1 was originally written by a guy named Benjamin Geer, in the late 90's. Though Ben Geer was, strictly speaking, the original author, I don't think he was really involved in the project for very long. He wasn't involved when I showed up in the community in late 2001 anyway. At that point, I basically took over, and within a few months, the thing was a complete rewrite. And that was when FreeMarker 2.0 came into being. From 2002 to 2004/2005 we went through 4 release cycles, 2.0, 2.1, 2.2, and 2.3. Each release cycle added quite a bit more functionality. It is kinda sad that there is just about no meaningful difference between 2023 "Apache FreeMarker" and FreeMarker 2.3 from 2005 (or even late 2004). But the thing to understand is that this Apache FreeMarker code, the continuation of the FreeMarker 2.3 codebase, is really something very ancient. Most of the work on this was done in the period from 2002 to 2005 or so, about a decade before there was any "Apache FreeMarker". Basically, the project was very old and stagnant at that point and came to Apache to die, I guess. So I've decided to resuscitate it. Or give it my best shot... > Your web site is down, the documentation on the GitHub project is sparse. > That is true at the moment but is all quite remediable -- especially if some people want to get involved and do some heavy lifting. (I get the feeling that's not you!) In any case, I said quite clearly that this is a preview. You can't expect something that is a preview to be as polished as something as old as FreeMarker 2.3, which has been pretty stable since 2004 or thereabouts! > There is no way to tell whether it really is more advanced or not. > Well, frankly, this is just nonsense. There is no legitimate controversy over whether this version of FreeMarker is more advanced or not. Of course it is. As I explained in the previous note in response to Taher Alkhateeb, it is built on top of the 2.4 codebase, while Apache FreeMarker is a continuation of the 2.3 codebase. Aside from that, just scan over the commit record: https://github.com/freemarker/freemarker3/commits/master Truth told, over the last few months, I have effected something close to a complete rewrite. But this is just ridiculous! Tell me, do you think there is some legitimate controversy over whether JDK 8 is more advanced than JDK 7? That's just silly. In any case, both FreeMarker 2.3 and this FreeMarker 3.0 preview that I just announced are largely my work. Is it possible that an earlier version of work by the same author is more advanced than the later version? Does that make any sense? Of course this version is more advanced! It can never be on Maven central, because the namespace (groupid) > "freemarker" is already claimed by Apache Freemarker. > Well, Ben... it is kind of disrespectful to talk such blatant nonsense to somebody. This is supposed to be some serious technical forum, isn't it? The "groupid" used on Maven Central is not something with any real transcendence at all. It certainly has no technical meaning. I mean, look, here is an example. The main OSS project I'm working on, as I said before, is CongoCC. A few months ago, our project (finally!) put out an "artifact" on Maven Central. That is here: https://central.sonatype.com/artifact/org.congocc/org.congocc.parser.generator I later realized that somebody else had previously put up a Maven artifact. That is here: https://central.sonatype.com/artifact/com.clickhouse/org.congocc Funny enough, the guy who put that up was not even in touch with us about it beforehand. But the one we put up is, I guess, under org.congocc and the one put up earlier by a third party is under com.clickhouse, which I guess is the URL he controls or his employer, or... I dunno... Actually, I just looked, and there is a patched version of FreeMarker 2.3.29 put up by Liferay, which is this one: https://central.sonatype.com/artifact/com.liferay/org.freemarker But the point is that it just doesn't matter! The whole idea that I can't put something on Maven Central because this nothingburger project controls the freemarker.org domain... Well, okay, I guess it's true that we can't use "org.freemarker" as a groupid since it's taken but... so what? So we use something else. (Duh.) When I decided on CongoCC as a new name for the parser generator project, I checked whether congocc.org was available and registered it. But I had anticipated having github.com/congocc as our "organization" location, but somehow that was taken, so we use github.com/congo-cc with a hyphen. Whatever. It would be a bit nicer if we had congocc without the hyphen, but it's hardly a sine qua non either. Well, anyway, look, we're not acquainted, but I find this quite
Re: Long-Awaited FreeMarker 3 Preview Available
On Thu, Nov 9, 2023 at 6:40 PM Taher Alkhateeb
wrote:
Hi Taher,
> I'm a little confused. Why aren't we joining efforts on the apache version?
Well, in an ideal world, that is what would happen, yes. But this is
hardly an ideal situation.
> Why make it "a pity if a wider group of
> people never get the benefit of this work"? Am I missing something too
> obvious or too old or something? Is this code base completely incompatible?
> Is this a technical issue?
>
There is a technical issue, a very big one, that I shall explain below.
However, that said, the problem here is not exclusively technical
Well, I reckon that hardly anybody here really understands that "Apache
FreeMarker" is a continuation of the FreeMarker 2.3.x codebase that really,
by all rights, reached the end of the line at some point in 2005, at the
latest.
Any subsequent work in the SVN trunk ("trunk" being what is called in Git
"master" or nowadays "main") was, in principle, the main line of
development for the 2.4 release cycle. (Or possibly it was going to
eventually be labeled 3.0.) All the work that I myself did in 2006, 2007,
and 2008 was in the SVN trunk.
For reasons that I can only speculate about, when Daniel Dekany took the
FreeMarker code to Apache, he took the 2.3.x maintenance branch, not the
trunk of the code, i.e. the main line of development. As for why he did
this, you'd have to ask Daniel.
As I explained in the previous message, I picked up my older parser
generator work (a fork and eventually a total rewrite of JavaCC) again at
the end of 2019 and that work had always used the newer version of
FreeMarker (that Daniel abandoned for whatever reason). So all improvements
to FreeMarker that I have made over the last few months were built on top
of the 2.4.x codebase. For example, here specifically is an example from
the wishlist for the vaporware FreeMarker 3 here
https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/FREEMARKER/FreeMarker+3
"Replace #assign/#global/#local with #var/#set. Allow block-scope
variables. [Status: Not done]"
Okay, it is still unimplemented in Apache FreeMarker. Now, I believe I
mentioned this feature in the announcement. In any case, it is described
here: https://github.com/freemarker/freemarker3/wiki/Strict-Vars
But here is the real point. This is NOT something that I added recently. I
implemented this back in 2008(!) (Or possibly earlier!) Interestingly,
there was actually one preview release of 2.4, labeled "2.4 preview 1" that
was released on 16 July 2008. And that definitely had #var/#set in it.
Funny, that release is only mentioned on the Russian language wikipedia
page. See the sidebar here: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeMarker Okay,
probably most of you can't read Russian, but the sidebar mentions the
latest development release as being 2.4 preview 1, and the date there is 16
July 2008.
I mean, all of this is really ancient history. The version of FreeMarker
that is used internally in CongoCC has had #set/#var from the very
beginning. (That project actually existed back in 2008 but was called
FreeCC.) In any case, if you look at the main FM template for generating
grammar productions in CongoCC here
https://github.com/congo-cc/congo-parser-generator/blob/main/src/templates/java/ParserProductions.java.ftl
you can see that all the variable assignments use the "new" (I put that in
scare quotes) #set/#var and there is no #assign or #local anywhere (in that
template or any of the others) and that has been the case from project's
beginnings back in 2008.
But hopefully, you can understand the implications of what I'm telling you.
Apache FreeMarker, now in 2023 (soon 2024) is still missing features that
were in the FreeMarker codebase in 2008! 15 years ago!
And it's not just #set/#var. The more advanced version of FreeMarker
exposes an API for accessing the AST (abstract syntax tree) of a parsed
template and that facilitates all kinds of things that would be very hard
(maybe impossible) to do against the 2.3.x codebase.
Well, anyway, the FreeMarker 3 that I recently announced is based on
continued work on what was really the main line of development, the SVN
trunk. There was quite a bit of radical change in the 2006-2008 time period
and the 2.4 (now 3.0) codebase is simply not compatible with the older 2.3
branch, which is what Apache FreeMarker really is.
Anyway, what I describe above is the technical side of the conversation.
The non-technical side of things is that it's just not very appealing to
try to collaborate with this "community". I put in enough work on this
thing and I would like to reactivate the project into something real
instead of the nothingburger project that it currently is. (The
nothingburger concept is something that I explained in this essay:
https://wiki.parsers.org/doku.php?id=nothingburger and if you want to
understand how I perceive this situation, you would do well to read that.).
So, if there are people lurking who are sick of all the nothingburger-ism
Re: Long-Awaited FreeMarker 3 Preview Available
I never knew there was an "original" freemarker project. Your web site is down, the documentation on the GitHub project is sparse. There is no way to tell whether it really is more advanced or not. It can never be on Maven central, because the namespace (groupid) "freemarker" is already claimed by Apache Freemarker. - Ben Am Do., 9. Nov. 2023 um 18:40 Uhr schrieb Taher Alkhateeb : > > > I'm a little confused. Why aren't we joining efforts on the apache version? > Why make it "a pity if a wider group of > people never get the benefit of this work"? Am I missing something too > obvious or too old or something? Is this code base completely incompatible? > Is this a technical issue? > > Taher Alkhateeb > > On Wednesday, November 08, 2023 04:03 +03, Jonathan Revusky > wrote: > Greetings, > > I thought to let people know that there is a vastly more advanced version > of FreeMarker available here: https://github.com/freemarker/freemarker3 > > You can build it via: > > git clone https://github.com/freemarker/freemarker3.git > cd freemarker3 > ant > > Or, if you want, there is a prebuilt jarfile you can grab here: > https://parsers.org/download/freemarker.jar > > Though it is actually a rather superficial new feature, I think that one > thing that people will enjoy is the new terser syntax. Basically, if a > directive starts a line (aside from whitespace) there is no need for any > pointy (or square) brackets. So you can just write: > > #if foo == bar > blah blah > /#if > > You can look here for a more complete description: > https://github.com/freemarker/freemarker3/wiki/Terse-Syntax and here is an > example of a template from the old test suite rewritten using the terser > syntax: > https://github.com/freemarker/freemarker3/blob/master/src/freemarker/testcase/template/test-switch.html > > In this version of FreeMarker, the #assign and #local directives (though > they still work in a backward-compatible mode) were replaced with the newer > #var and #set. This is (IMHO) a significant improvement and is described > here: https://github.com/freemarker/freemarker3/wiki/Strict-Vars > > Just generally speaking though, the biggest changes are really under the > hood and would not be so visible to the casual user. This FreeMarker > codebase has been refactored so that it largely does away with all of those > TemplateXXXModel wrappers and mostly just directly uses POJOs. (Plain Old > Java Objects.) This is described here: > https://github.com/freemarker/freemarker3/wiki/Under-the-Hood > > Various longstanding annoyances, like not being able to directly use a map > with non-string keys, have been addressed. > > Oh, it suddenly occurs to me that many (perhaps most) people on this > mailing list do not know who I am. I am effectively the original author of > FreeMarker. I say "effectively" because there was a FreeMarker 1.x, which > was really little more than a weekend hack. The version that 99% of > FreeMarker users have used, which is 2.x, was a complete rewrite and is > largely my work. > > As for other questions about what is going on with this, for example, why I > have put some renewed effort into FreeMarker after all years... well, my > main open source efforts have been going into my rewrite of that old JavaCC > parser generator that FreeMarker 2.x was originally built with. The new > version of JavaCC was originally called FreeCC, then when I resuscitated it > a few years ago, I called it JavaCC 21, but it is now rebranded as CongoCC. > So, since FreeMarker is a key part of CongoCC, I found myself adding the > occasional new feature to FreeMarker (my own version, not Apache > FreeMarker). For example, the feature described here > https://github.com/freemarker/freemarker3/wiki/Macros-as-Functions was > added to support CongoCC development back in 2020, but probably a lot of > FreeMarker users would appreciate this. > > So, at some point, I did rework FreeMarker to use CongoCC instead of the > legacy JavaCC. CongoCC is a much, much more powerful parser generator than > the original JavaCC, so it makes FreeMarker development comparatively a > breeze. For example, I quite recently implemented assertions in FreeMarker > and this is where it is implemented: > https://github.com/freemarker/freemarker3/blob/master/src/parser/Directives.inc.ccc#L417-L445 > > Or here is where ternary expressions are implemented: > https://github.com/freemarker/freemarker3/blob/master/src/parser/Expressions.inc.ccc#L98-L118 > You really should compare the FreeMarker grammar expressed with CongoCC to > the one that was written with legacy JavaCC, that is here: > https://github.com/apache/freemarker/blob/2.3-gae/src/main/javacc/FTL.jj > > So I rewrote FreeMarker (it is largely a rewrite at this point) to: (a) > have a better tool for CongoCC development and (b) to provide a showcase > for CongoCC's capabilities. > > As for my plans, well, I do think it would be a pity if a wider group of > people never get the benefit of this work.
Re: Long-Awaited FreeMarker 3 Preview Available
I'm a little confused. Why aren't we joining efforts on the apache version? Why make it "a pity if a wider group of people never get the benefit of this work"? Am I missing something too obvious or too old or something? Is this code base completely incompatible? Is this a technical issue? Taher Alkhateeb On Wednesday, November 08, 2023 04:03 +03, Jonathan Revusky wrote: Greetings, I thought to let people know that there is a vastly more advanced version of FreeMarker available here: https://github.com/freemarker/freemarker3 You can build it via: git clone https://github.com/freemarker/freemarker3.git cd freemarker3 ant Or, if you want, there is a prebuilt jarfile you can grab here: https://parsers.org/download/freemarker.jar Though it is actually a rather superficial new feature, I think that one thing that people will enjoy is the new terser syntax. Basically, if a directive starts a line (aside from whitespace) there is no need for any pointy (or square) brackets. So you can just write: #if foo == bar blah blah /#if You can look here for a more complete description: https://github.com/freemarker/freemarker3/wiki/Terse-Syntax and here is an example of a template from the old test suite rewritten using the terser syntax: https://github.com/freemarker/freemarker3/blob/master/src/freemarker/testcase/template/test-switch.html In this version of FreeMarker, the #assign and #local directives (though they still work in a backward-compatible mode) were replaced with the newer #var and #set. This is (IMHO) a significant improvement and is described here: https://github.com/freemarker/freemarker3/wiki/Strict-Vars Just generally speaking though, the biggest changes are really under the hood and would not be so visible to the casual user. This FreeMarker codebase has been refactored so that it largely does away with all of those TemplateXXXModel wrappers and mostly just directly uses POJOs. (Plain Old Java Objects.) This is described here: https://github.com/freemarker/freemarker3/wiki/Under-the-Hood Various longstanding annoyances, like not being able to directly use a map with non-string keys, have been addressed. Oh, it suddenly occurs to me that many (perhaps most) people on this mailing list do not know who I am. I am effectively the original author of FreeMarker. I say "effectively" because there was a FreeMarker 1.x, which was really little more than a weekend hack. The version that 99% of FreeMarker users have used, which is 2.x, was a complete rewrite and is largely my work. As for other questions about what is going on with this, for example, why I have put some renewed effort into FreeMarker after all years... well, my main open source efforts have been going into my rewrite of that old JavaCC parser generator that FreeMarker 2.x was originally built with. The new version of JavaCC was originally called FreeCC, then when I resuscitated it a few years ago, I called it JavaCC 21, but it is now rebranded as CongoCC. So, since FreeMarker is a key part of CongoCC, I found myself adding the occasional new feature to FreeMarker (my own version, not Apache FreeMarker). For example, the feature described here https://github.com/freemarker/freemarker3/wiki/Macros-as-Functions was added to support CongoCC development back in 2020, but probably a lot of FreeMarker users would appreciate this. So, at some point, I did rework FreeMarker to use CongoCC instead of the legacy JavaCC. CongoCC is a much, much more powerful parser generator than the original JavaCC, so it makes FreeMarker development comparatively a breeze. For example, I quite recently implemented assertions in FreeMarker and this is where it is implemented: https://github.com/freemarker/freemarker3/blob/master/src/parser/Directives.inc.ccc#L417-L445 Or here is where ternary expressions are implemented: https://github.com/freemarker/freemarker3/blob/master/src/parser/Expressions.inc.ccc#L98-L118 You really should compare the FreeMarker grammar expressed with CongoCC to the one that was written with legacy JavaCC, that is here: https://github.com/apache/freemarker/blob/2.3-gae/src/main/javacc/FTL.jj So I rewrote FreeMarker (it is largely a rewrite at this point) to: (a) have a better tool for CongoCC development and (b) to provide a showcase for CongoCC's capabilities. As for my plans, well, I do think it would be a pity if a wider group of people never get the benefit of this work. Whether I intend to call this version of FreeMarker "FreeMarker 3" or rename it to "Congo Templates", I still haven't decided about that. I really only put some serious effort into the FreeMarker codebase starting this summer and the work kind of took on a life of its own. In any case, anybody who is interested in getting involved, by all means. Maybe start a discussion here: https://github.com/freemarker/freemarker3/discussions Best Regards and Greetings from Spain, Jonathan Revusky
