EARLY STALLED EXPLORATION

Test Programs for the PINF JavaScript Loader

Status: BETA

NOTE: This projects initially targets a UNIX toolchain. Windows support is planned.

This project contains example JavaScript programs conforming to and building on the CommonJS standards. The programs are made up of packages loaded via the PINF JavaScript Loader from the PINF JavaScript Test Packages project and other places around the Internet.

The programs require any one or more of the following JavaScript platforms:

• NodeJS - Scalable, asynchronous JavaScript network programs (Currently required at minimum and used by default)
• GPSEE - General Purpose Spidermonkey Embedding Ecosystem
• v8cgi - CGI wrapper around V8 JavaScript engine
• Narwhal - Cross-platform, multi-interpreter, general purpose JavaScript platform
• RingoJS - JavaScript runtime based on Mozilla Rhino (Java)
• Modern Browser

Platform install instructions:

• See individual platform projects
• PINF JavaScript Platform for OSX Lion (includes all supported platforms)

You also need the PINF JavaScript Loader. Use any one of the following install solutions:

npm install -g pinf-loader-js

cd ~/
wget -O pinf-loader-js.tar.gz https://github.com/pinf/loader-js/tarball/master
tar -zxf pinf-loader-js.tar.gz
mv pinf-loader-js-* pinf-loader-js
alias commonjs='~/pinf-loader-js/pinf-loader.sh'

cd ~/
git clone git://github.com/pinf/loader-js.git pinf-loader-js
alias commonjs='~/pinf-loader-js/pinf-loader.sh'

Make sure it works:

commonjs -h

NOTE: When running the programs below a .pinf_packages folder is created in your current working directory which holds the downloaded dependencies. To keep dependencies centrally create a folder at /pinf/pinf_packages.

Test/Example Programs

CONTRIBUTE: If any of the programs below do not work on the indicated platforms on your system please let us know! You can also help complete the API adapters to bring full support to all platforms (where possible).

Portable

Programs that run on all platforms (command-line and in-browser):

• HelloWorld - A bare-bones Hello World with a dependency. See ./HelloWorld
• AdditionalLoad - Additional code loading with a dependency. See ./AdditionalLoad
• JSLintBenchmark - JSLint Benchmark. See ./JSLintBenchmark
• ModuleSourceFormats - Module Source Formats. See ./ModuleSourceFormats
• CommonJSAPI - CommonJS API for packages. See ./CommonJSAPI

Run the programs via the Demo Program Runner included in this project (currently requires node until API adapters are complete):

commonjs -v --platform node https://github.com/pinf/test-programs-js/zipball/master --port 8081 HelloWorld

This will run the program once on the command line, export it for static serving and start a development server that will dynamically load the program into a browser with every refresh.

To run the programs (in command-line mode) on various platforms (without the browser stuff) use:

commonjs -v --platform <PlatformAlias> https://github.com/pinf/test-programs-js/zipball/master HelloWorld

Where <PlatformAlias> is any of node, gpsee, v8cgi, narwhal or ringo.

Drop the -v to omit the loader progress output.

NOTE: Currently requires running with --platform node (default) ONCE first to download dependencies due to incomplete API adapters for the other platforms.

Platform: node

Programs leveraging the node platform:

• Simple command-line URL Fetcher. See ./URLFetcher (Will run on all platforms once API adapters are complete):

  commonjs --platform node https://github.com/pinf/test-programs-js/zipball/master URLFetcher
  

• Server + Browser Canvas Graphics with plain JavaScript library dependency. See ./CanvasGraphics

  commonjs --platform node --script serve https://github.com/pinf/test-programs-js/zipball/master --reloading --port 8081 CanvasGraphics
  

Automated Testing

The programs in this project make a great test suite for the PINF JavaScript Loader, the loader's adapters and the platform implementations. The following will run various programs against available and applicable platforms:

# All tests
commonjs --platform node --script test https://github.com/pinf/test-programs-js/zipball/master

# Specific test
commonjs --platform node --script test https://github.com/pinf/test-programs-js/zipball/master portable-HelloWorld.js

Development

To make changes to a dependency and use your local copy when running the program, place the dependency's package into /pinf/workspaces/<UID>. For example:

cd /pinf/workspaces/github.com/pinf/
git clone git://github.com/pinf/test-packages-js.git test-packages-js

The loader will automatically detect the package via its UID and use the local source.

If you have cloned this test-programs-js project and want to run it from source:

cd /pinf/workspaces/github.com/pinf/
git clone git://github.com/pinf/test-programs-js.git test-programs-js

Replace https://github.com/pinf/test-programs-js/zipball/master with /pinf/workspaces/github.com/pinf/test-programs-js in the commands above.

Support, Feedback & News

• Mailing list: http://groups.google.com/group/pinf-dev/
• Twitter: http://twitter.com/pinf
• Blog: http://christophdorn.com/Blog/

TODO

Known Issues

• Canvas Graphics demo does not work when downloaded the first time. It works on the second invocation.
• gpsee segfaults at times (this is being actively worked on)
• nodes event loop seems to hang script termination for ~5 to 10 seconds at times.

Priority: High

• Get portable programs working on all platforms without downloading dependencies with node first.
  • Resolve platform level bugs.
  • Complete adapters: https://github.com/pinf/loader-js/tree/master/lib/pinf-loader-js/adapter
• Remove NPM dependency from CanvasGraphics example so we can make it portable.
• Configurable /pinf/pinf_packages path.
• Run exported programs on BravoJS or RequireJS.
• node specific demos (with and without leveraging NPM)
• gpsee specific demos
• v8cgi specific demos
• narwhal specific demos
• ringo specific demos
• JSGI demos
• CommonJS API demos
  • http://olegp.github.com/common-node/

Priority: Medium

• Get exported HelloWorld program working on all platforms.

Priority: Low

• Performance tuning of PINF JavaScript Loader on ringo.
• Example program leveraging SASS.

Contribute

Collaboration Platform: https://github.com/pinf/test-programs-js/

Collaboration Process:

1. Discuss your change on the mailing list
2. Write a patch on your own
3. Send pull request on github & ping mailing list
4. Discuss pull request on github to refine

You must explicitly license your patch by adding the following to the top of any file you modify in order for your patch to be accepted:

//  - <GithubUsername>, First Last <Email>, Copyright YYYY, MIT License

Author

This project is a part of the PINF project maintained by Christoph Dorn.

Documentation License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0

Copyright (c) 2011+ Christoph Dorn

Code License

MIT License

Copyright (c) 2011+ Christoph Dorn

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.