Re: [gentoo-user] Web mail

[Boyd Stephen Smith Jr.]

On Tuesday 02 May 2006 23:37, JimD <Jim@×××××××××××××××××.org> wrote 
about 'Re: [gentoo-user] Web mail':
> Michael Sullivan wrote:
> > What other style is there besides procedural?
>
> A much better way IMO is to separate the presentation from the code like
> you can do with ASP.Net with Mono/MS.  ASP.Net makes web app development
> *event* oriented.  You write event handlers to handle certain events
> like a page loading or a button being clicked, just as you would do with
> a GUI app, and you don't have to have all the markup spewed about in the
> code.

The output of ASP.Net is trash.  Most notably it doesn't gracefully degrade 
as the browser loses features, and generates unnecessary round-trips to 
the server.

I agree that event-driven programming generally a better fit for GUIs, 
however it's not really a good fit for HTTP.  I prefer a middle ground 
that removes the spew of markup (which is bad) but doesn't work against 
HTTP/HTML.  In general, the goal is for php/java/vb/c#/<your language 
here> to not generate much markup, but to generate the content inside the 
markup.

> With an
> event-driven web app, the code would have been separated and it would
> have been real easy to make changes to.

Code separation is easily done without writing event-driven code.  You can 
define procedure libraries and/or Class (and object) hierarchies that 
don't deal with markup but use their results in the markup.

Code separation is easily broken even in event-driven code -- there's 
nothing preventing event driven code from outputting or manipulating 
markup in ugly ways.

Writing an event-driven dynamic webpage is a little questionable to begin 
with since the underlying protocol is request-driven.  If your 
applications are request driven, you'll find they are much easier to 
debug.  Work *with* the tools you are given, not against them.  On top of 
that, you have very little control over the other side of the protocol, 
most of the time.  This is basically a requirement for layer another 
framework on a protocol and changing how it works.  E.g. TCP 
[stream-oriented with delivery guarantees] over IP [packet-oriented with 
no delivery guarantees] has fairly specific behavior for both sides of the 
TCP connection.

All this said (and bringing the message full-circle), if your example is 
indicative of the larger code base:

The SquirrelMail source code is trash.

-- 
"If there's one thing we've established over the years,
it's that the vast majority of our users don't have the slightest
clue what's best for them in terms of package stability."
-- Gentoo Developer Ciaran McCreesh