NOTE: we have the policy to always support current Debian/stable
amd at least one Ubuntu LTS release, unless hard dependency problems prevent that.
Currently, Ubuntu/Trusty is already a bit dated, but the only problematic dependency
could be libboost (1.54 in Trusty, 1.55 in Jessie).
GCC-4.8 can be replaced by GCC-4.9 in Trusty without problems
It is always a bit tricky to find out the precise lower boundary,
so we try to upgrade these requirements as our platform progresses.
For now we have used the level available on Ubuntu/Trusty to set
the lower constraints for most libraries
This is a development snaphot pre release of Lumiera.
It features codebase maintenance, upgrade to C++14 and GTK-3
and some work towards a Proc-GUI connection (unfinished)
Update README, AUTHORS, LICENSE and similar release docs.
because otherwise we'd need to send a whole subtree
over the wire and then descend into it just to find an element.
This too is a ripple effect of making '==' deep
well... this was quite a piece of work
Added some documentation, but a complete documentation,
preferably to the website, would be desirable, as would
be a more complete test covering the negative corner cases
It is difficult to reconcile our general architecture for the
linearised diff representation with the processing of recursive,
tree-like data structures. The natural and most clean way to
deal with trees is to use recursion, i.e. the processor stack.
But in our case, this means we'd have to peek into the next
token of the language and then forward the diff iterator
into a recursive call on the nested scope. Essentially, this
breaks the separation between receiving a token sequence and
interpretation for a concrete target data structure.
For this reason, it is preferrable to make the stack an
internal state of the concrete interpreter. The downside of
this approach is the quite confusing data storage management;
we try to make the role of the storage elements a bit more
clear through descriptive accessor functions.
each language token of our "linearised diff representation"
carries a payload data element, which typically is the piece
of data to be altered (added, mutated, etc).
Basically, these elements have value semantics and are
"sent over wire", and thus it seems natural when the
language interpreter functions accept that piece of payload
by-value. But since we're now sending GenNode elements as
parameter data in our diff, which typically are of the
size of 10 data elements (640 bit on a 64bit machine),
it seems more resonable to pass these argument elements
by const& through the interpreter function. This still
means we can (and will indeed) copy the mutated data
values when applying the diff, but we're able to
relay the data more efficiently to the point where
it's consumed.
this boils down to the two alternatives
- manipulate the target data structure
- build an altered copy
since our goal is to handle large tree structures efficiently,
the decision was cast in favour of data manipulation
so basically it's time to explicate the way
our diff language will actually be written.
Similar to the list diff case, it's a linear sequence
of verb tokens, but in this case, the payload value
in each token is a GenNode. This is the very reason
why GenNode was conceived as value object with an
opaque DataCap payload
Initially I intended just to supply an addapter to use
the monadic IterExplorer for this recursive expansion
of GenNode contents. Investigating this approach was
relevant to highlight the minimum requirements for
such an evaluation mechanics: since our GenNode
is an hierarchical structure without back-links,
we are bound to use a stack at some point. And
since an Iterator is a materialised continuation,
we can not use the processor stack and are forced
to represent this stack in memory.
Yet, on second thought, we do not need the full power
of the IterExplorer monad; especially we do not need
to bind arbitrary functions into the monad, just one
single scope exploring function, implemented as
Variant visitor. Based on these observations, we can
"inline" the monad structure into a double nested
iterator, where the outer capsule carries a stack
of scopes to be explored.
remembered that some years ago I had to deal with a very similar problem
for planning the frame rendering jobs. It turned out, that the
iterator monad developed for this looks promising for our task at hand
initially my intention was to use the ID for equality test.
But on a second thought, this seemed like a bad idea, since
it confuses the concepts of equality and identity.
Note: at the moment, I do not know if we even need an equality test,
so it is provided here rather for sake of completeness. And this
means even more that we want an 'equality' implementation that
does what one would naively expect: compare the object identity
*and* compare the contents.
especially setting (changing) attributes turned out to be tricky,
since in case of a GenNode this would mean to re-bind the hash ID;
we can not possibly do that properly without knowing the type of the payload,
and by design this payload type is opaque (erased).
As resort, I changed the semantics of the assign operation:
now it rather builds a new payload element, with a given initialiser.
In case of the strings, this ends up being the same operation,
while in case of GenNode, this is now something entirely different:
we can now build a new GenNode "in place" of the old one, and both
will have the same symbolic ID (attribute key). Incidentally,
our Variant implementation will reject such a re-building operatinon
when this means to change the (opaque) payload type.
in addition, I created a new API function on the Mutator,
allowing to move-in a complete attribute object. Actually this
new function became the working implementation. This way, it is
still possible to emplace a new attribute efficiently (consider
this to be a whole object graph!). But only, if the key (ID)
embedded in the attribute object is already what is the intended
key for this attribute. This way, we elegantly circumvent the
problem of having to re-bind a hash ID without knowing the type seed
OMG, what was all this about?
OK... this cant possibly work this way.
At least we need to trim after splitting the attributes.
But this is not enough, we want the value, which implies
to make the type flexible (since we cant return a const& to
a substring extracted on-the-fly)
especially I've now decided how to handle const-ness:
We're open to all forms of const-ness, the actual usage decides.
const GenNode will only expose a const& to the data values
still TODO is the object builder notation for diff::Record
on a second thought, this "workaround" does not look so bad,
due to the C++11 feature to request the default implementation explicitly.
Maybe we'll never need a generic solution for these cases
This is just a draft for now -- kindof a by-catch, since it is
chep to build that DSL on top of the Rec::Mutator.
This DSL could be of value later, when it comes to define
some configuration data inline, in a copact and clear fashion,
without the need to use a bridge to/from JSON
for the purpose of working out the inner logic, I frequently use the
help of a mindmap -- so why not commiting this alongside? For sure,
it is preliminary and the worked out concepts will be cast in code
and documented on the website. Yet the thought-process leading to
these decisions might be of some interest, at least for myself.
before engaging into the implementation of lib::Record,
I prefer to conduct a round of planning, to get a clearer
view about the requirements we'll meet when extending
our existing list diff to tree structures
Introduce the new term "Fork" at various relevant places
within the documentation. We do not entirely purge the
term "track" though; rather we
- make clear that "Fork" is the entity to build tracks
- use "fork" also synonymous to the "tree of tracks"
This switches the Lumiera UI from GTK-2 to GTK-3
Unfortunately, this move breaks two crucial features, which have been
disabled for now: the display of video and our custom timeline widget.
Since both of these require some reworking, which in fact has already
started, we prefer to do the library and framework switch right away.
to carry out that rather obvious step, I was bound to consider
all the implications of choosing a given layout and handling pattern
for our external structure representation.
Finally, I settled upon the following decisions
- the value space represented within the DataCap is flat, not further structured
- the distinction between "attribute" and "nested object" is merely conceptual
and will be enforced solely by the diff detection / representation protocol
- basically, a nested subtree may appear as an attribute; the difference
between attributes and children lies solely in the way of access and referral:
by-name vs. positional
- it is pointless to save space for the representation of the discriminator ID
- but we can omit any further explicit type tag, because
- we do *not* support programming by switch-on-type, and thus
- we do *not* support full introspection, only a passive type-safety check
- this is *not* a limitation, since we acknowledge that GenNode is a *Monad*
- and the partial function needed within any flatMap implementation
maps naturally onto our Variant-Visitor; thus
- the DataCap can basically just *be* a Variant
- and GenNode has just to supply the neccessary shaffolding
to turn that into a full fledged Monad implementation, including
direct construction by wrapping a value and flatMap with tree walk
This mindmap explains some of the ideas and concepts in more detail.
It can be viewed with the "freeplane" mind mapping software.
("freemind" works as well, but will mess up some of the formatting)
note by the committer: this mindmap was really work in progress.
Christoph shared it with me while in discussion. I'll place it
here in the git history, since it might be interesting to se
how the thoughts evolved. Isn't that what mindmaps are all about?
so yes, it is complicated, and inevitably involves three layers
of indirection. The alternative seems to bind the GUI direcly to
the Session interface -- is there a middle gound?
For the messages from GUI to Proc, we have our commands, based
on PlacementRef entities. But for feeding model updates to the
GUI, whatever I consider, I end up either with diff messages or
an synchronised access to Session attributes, which ties the
responsiveness of the GUI to the Builder operation.
- we use a GenNode element
- this holds a polymorphic value known as DataCap
- besides simple attribute values, this may hold collections of GenNode sub elements
- a special kind of GenNode collection, the Record, is used to represent objects
The purpose of this setup is to enable an external model representation
which is only loosely coupled to the interndal data representation
through the exchange of (tree)diff messages
previously this operation was named 'attach', which an be confused
with attching an object to this location. Indeed, the session interface
even offers such an attach function. By renaming the focus moving
operation into QueryFocus::shift(Scope), this ambiguity is resolved
This is the first step towards a generic backbone to connect
any GUI elements to the session within Proc-Layer.
It is based on a spefic understanding of Model-View-Controller,
which turns the Model-Controller interactions into messages.
Remove some orphaned diagrams and PNG images not actually used
in the TiddlyWiki. Add a page with some hints regarding Bouml
See also #960 -- Bouml has been discontinued and is closed source now
not sure how to proceed with this
This means to discontinue any research into emitting an optimal
diff verb sequence for now and just to document the possible path
I see to reach at such a optimal solution later, when it turns out
to be really necessary performance wise.
Personal note: I arrived at this conclusion while whatching the
New Year fireworks 2014/2015 at the banks of the Isar river in
the centre of the city.
Too sad that 2014 didn't bring us World War III
we want a simple and straight forward way of defining tokens
of the "diff language". Each token is bound to a specific
handler function in the language interpreter interface.
Problem is that likely we'll get a ListDiffLanguage and a TreeDiffLanguage;
after all, I really don't know yet how far to take this whole
diff representation endeavour...
...first step is to design a generic linearised list diff representation.
Basically just need to pull together the theoretical work of the last weeks.
Next steps will be to extend to typed ordered trees.
Actually I arried at the conclusion, that the *receiving* of
a diff representation is actually a typical double-dispatch situation.
This leads to the attempt to come up with a specialised visitor
as standard pattern to handle and apply a diff. Obviously,
we do not want the classical GoF-Visitor, but (yes, we had
that discussion allready) -- well in terms of runtime cost,
we have to deal with at least two indirections anyway;
so now I'm exploring the idea to implement one of these
indirections through a functor object, which at the same time
acts as "Tag" in the diff representation language (instead
of using an enum as tag)
This DSL is usable as wire format for sending
structural change data to another, loosely coupled entity.
A similar format could be used for model serialisation later on.
I know that "reactive" is some kind of a fad currently.
But the term captures the intent very well, and I for sure
wanted such a GUI 5 years ago. Waiting after each stroke or
trim for 5 seconds or even 30 seconds for the UI to update
just totally sucks and kills any creative flow.
We all know that an application needs to be built for reactivity
and exactly that is what we do.
initial considerations; there is a concurrency problem, since
all of session handling within Proc is deliberately not threadsafe.
Thus the decision is to make this the gui::model::SessionFacade's responsibility
Actually this is nothing new, just making explicit what is evident
from the definition of the Proc-Layer model entities. By following
these conventions, it should be possible to come up with a
clearer structure for the custom timeline widget(s).
- upgrade the configuration to a current version
- provide a frontpage with cross-links to other documentation
- define a set of modules; relevant classes and files can be
added to these, to create a exploration path for new readers
- fix a lot of errors in documentation comments
- use a custom configuration for the documentation pages
- tweak the navigation, the sections and further arrangements
Notably TiddlyWiki provides now a fallback mechanism
in case the saving to a local file fails due to security
restrictions. When this happens, TiddlyWiki generates a
download link pointing to the current content; this way
one is at least able to "save as" through the browser
context menu.
Due to some controversial policy changes in recent Firefox versions
the support for saving to local files was removed. The rationale
given by the Firefox developers was that this is a rarely used
and generally outdated concept; preferrably people shall use
extensions and save to cloud services (!)
Anyway, Jeremy Ruston, the original author of TiddlyWiki, wrote
a Firefox plugin called "TiddlyFox" to work around these
arcane limitations.
this draft fills in the structure how to get from an invocation
of the engine service to the starting of actual CalcStream instances.
Basically the EngineService implementation is repsonsile to
instruct the Segmentation to provide a suitable Dispatcher.
we were using an very ancient TiddlyWiki version, basically
unaltered since the start of the Lumiera project.
Recent Firefox versions (starting with FF-17) effectively
removed the ability for JavaScript code to get additional
privileges for writing local files; this change seriuosly
undermines the usability of TiddlyWiki and a lot of similar
portable local JavaScript applications.
The original author of TiddlyWiki, Jeremy Ruston, has written
a Firefox plug-in to work around this restriction; this prompts
us to upgrade to a recent TiddlyWiki version as well.
The good news is: recent TiddlyWiki versions are able to import
Tiddlers from older Wikis without much hassle.
