From jeff at bioinformatics.org Wed Feb 19 11:29:11 2003 From: jeff at bioinformatics.org (J.W. Bizzaro) Date: Fri Feb 10 19:39:25 2006 Subject: [Pipet Users] New directions for Piper? Message-ID: <3E53B0D7.2090002@bioinformatics.org> Hi Pipers! Please see the home page: http://bioinformatics.org/piper/ This list may be shut down if the project takes the direction mentioned on the home page. I will announce what the new list is for those who might be interested in the new, less ambitious, direction. Cheers. Jeff -- J.W. Bizzaro jeff@bioinformatics.org President, Bioinformatics.Org http://bioinformatics.org/~jeff "As we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously." -- Benjamin Franklin -- From Nicolas.Chauvat at logilab.fr Thu Feb 20 06:35:44 2003 From: Nicolas.Chauvat at logilab.fr (Nicolas Chauvat) Date: Fri Feb 10 19:39:25 2006 Subject: [Pipet Users] New directions for Piper? In-Reply-To: <3E53B0D7.2090002@bioinformatics.org> References: <3E53B0D7.2090002@bioinformatics.org> Message-ID: <20030220113544.GC8946@logilab.fr> On Wed, Feb 19, 2003 at 11:29:11AM -0500, J.W. Bizzaro wrote: > Hi Pipers! > > Please see the home page: > > http://bioinformatics.org/piper/ > > This list may be shut down if the project takes the direction mentioned > on the home page. I will announce what the new list is for those who > might be interested in the new, less ambitious, direction. Personnal opinions: * don't develop a web application using Apache+PHP, use Apache+mod_python and you'll benefit from all the qualities of a real programming language. * HTML is good for displaying information, not for manipulating information. The interface you're describing will be difficult to make and to use if done with HTML. If you really want to stick with a browser-based approach and can't stand distributing a client (Python+GTK?), then look into Javascript, DOM2 and CSS that can provide you with many missing parts (drag and drop, refreshing parts of the screen only, etc.) Hope this helps, -- Nicolas Chauvat http://www.logilab.com - "Mais o? est donc Ornicar ?" - LOGILAB, Paris (France) From jeff at bioinformatics.org Thu Feb 20 07:50:02 2003 From: jeff at bioinformatics.org (J.W. Bizzaro) Date: Fri Feb 10 19:39:25 2006 Subject: [Pipet Users] New directions for Piper? References: <3E53B0D7.2090002@bioinformatics.org> <20030220113544.GC8946@logilab.fr> Message-ID: <3E54CEFA.1060000@bioinformatics.org> Hi Nicolas. It's good to hear from you again. Nicolas Chauvat wrote: > * don't develop a web application using Apache+PHP, use Apache+mod_python and > you'll benefit from all the qualities of a real programming language. I've become somewhat familiar with PHP over the last couple years. I don't want to get into language wars, but there are some impressive features of PHP. I particularly like how a script can effortlessly switch back-and-forth betwen HTML and PHP code, without even writing a single print or echo statement. I really do prefer Python for general-purpose programming, esp. when OO is needed. But, I've found that it is indeed best to use "the right tool for the job". For example, I had recently looked into matrix programming and had narrowed my options down to 2: Python/NumPy or Octave. If you read the Python/NumPy manual, you'll see that there are tons of caveats about Python mistaking common mathematical programming notation (a la Octave/Matlab) for Python notation (Example: ' in matrix math means inverse; in Python it means single quotation mark). You don't have that problem with Octave, because the language was written for math programming. Now, I'm sure Python/NumPy can do whatever Octave can (and more), but the catches will make it more useful for programs that *have to* use Python. Otherwise, you are better off doing what I prefer these days: pipeline heterogeneus scripts on the command-line. I even use sed quite a bit :-) which is another example. > * HTML is good for displaying information, not for manipulating information. > The interface you're describing will be difficult to make and to use if > done with HTML. I agree and have even made that argument myself when describing the Piper desktop project I was working on. I have found, however, that (1) being able to shift nodes around quickly and interactively may be fun but is really not that important, (2) with imagemaps and pop-up windows, I can get pretty much the same features, and (3) the big killer: everyone has such different hardware and software configurations (and sits at so many different computers), that *anything* that can run without a download is a GreatThing[tm], for them and for me. If I had a huge team of developers with me, I might still prefer the downloadable client, but I've had such a hard time finding help, that I'm going to put manageability at the top of my list. Even finding developers to help with Bioinformatics.Org is difficult: money makes the world go around. > If you really want to stick with a browser-based approach and > can't stand distributing a client (Python+GTK?), then look into Javascript, > DOM2 and CSS that can provide you with many missing parts (drag and drop, > refreshing parts of the screen only, etc.) I haven't looked into using DOM2 with HTML. I'll check it out. Thanks. Cheers. Jeff -- J.W. Bizzaro jeff@bioinformatics.org President, Bioinformatics.Org http://bioinformatics.org/~jeff "As we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously." -- Benjamin Franklin -- From mogul at gelatinous.com Thu Feb 20 12:03:22 2003 From: mogul at gelatinous.com (Bret Mogilefsky) Date: Fri Feb 10 19:39:26 2006 Subject: [Pipet Users] New directions for Piper? In-Reply-To: <3E54CEFA.1060000@bioinformatics.org> References: <3E53B0D7.2090002@bioinformatics.org> <20030220113544.GC8946@logilab.fr> <3E54CEFA.1060000@bioinformatics.org> Message-ID: <1045760602.20508.28.camel@rodan.playstation.sony.com> In light of the statements below: Highly recommended that you go the DOM2/JS/CSS route, particularly as you can have the best of both worlds. Dragging widgets around in a cross-browser compatible way is easily possible now: http://www.youngpup.net/ (See "Components:DOM-Drag") Regards, Bret PS: Maturing SVG support means you can even make your widgets pretty: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/svg/ http://www.croczilla.com/svg/ (Note interactive shape/curve examples) On Thu, 2003-02-20 at 04:50, J.W. Bizzaro wrote: > I agree and have even made that argument myself when describing the > Piper desktop project I was working on. I have found, however, that (1) > being able to shift nodes around quickly and interactively may be fun > but is really not that important, (2) with imagemaps and pop-up windows, > I can get pretty much the same features, and (3) the big killer: > everyone has such different hardware and software configurations (and > sits at so many different computers), that *anything* that can run > without a download is a GreatThing[tm], for them and for me. [...] > > If you really want to stick with a browser-based approach and > > can't stand distributing a client (Python+GTK?), then look into Javascript, > > DOM2 and CSS that can provide you with many missing parts (drag and drop, > > refreshing parts of the screen only, etc.) > > I haven't looked into using DOM2 with HTML. I'll check it out. Thanks. > -- Bret Mogilefsky International House of Mojo From jean-marc.valin at hermes.usherb.ca Thu Feb 20 13:13:59 2003 From: jean-marc.valin at hermes.usherb.ca (Jean-Marc Valin) Date: Fri Feb 10 19:39:26 2006 Subject: [Pipet Users] New directions for Piper? In-Reply-To: <3E53B0D7.2090002@bioinformatics.org> References: <3E53B0D7.2090002@bioinformatics.org> Message-ID: <1045764838.1885.9.camel@idefix.homelinux.org> > This list may be shut down if the project takes the direction mentioned > on the home page. I will announce what the new list is for those who > might be interested in the new, less ambitious, direction. I won't be involved directly in the new Piper, but if it's decided to keep using Overflow, I'm still willing to offer assistance. Jean-Marc -- Jean-Marc Valin, M.Sc.A. LABORIUS (http://www.gel.usherb.ca/laborius) Universit? de Sherbrooke, Qu?bec, Canada -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... 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