Rails - Dec 2005 - Eleven??

I was poking around in the Gentoo Linux repository yesterday, trying to 
satisfy my curiosity about how many programming languages there are in 
"common use" today. I found one called "Eleven" which is
quite strangely
similar in intent to Rails. The home page is 
http://eleven.sourceforge.net/.

Eleven is much simpler than Rails, and there are some interesting ideas 
in it. To quote the web page:

"Eleven is a programming language for creating reliable, scalable web 
applications. Applications are expressed in a high-level language with a 
simple, C-like syntax, from which the Eleven compiler generates 
complete, ready-to-run implementions in PHP or mod_perl.

"Eleven is designed for applications in which rapid development, high 
performance, and stability are critical - but total control over the 
look and feel is not (since Eleven generates most of the user interface 
automatically). Good examples are online exams and surveys, electronic 
voting, and business workflow applications."

Do any of you have any experience with Eleven? It looks to me like Rails 
*can* do everything Eleven does, but for a beginner trying to put 
together a quick-and-dirty Intranet application, Eleven would be a good 
bit simpler, especially if the implementor was not a Ruby programmer. Do 
any of you see anything in Eleven that Rails can''t do easily?

-- 
M. Edward (Ed) Borasky

http://linuxcapacityplanning.com

M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:
> I was poking around in the Gentoo Linux repository yesterday, trying to
> satisfy my curiosity about how many programming languages there are in
> "common use" today. I found one called "Eleven" which
is quite strangely
> similar in intent to Rails. The home page is
> http://eleven.sourceforge.net/.
> 
> Eleven is much simpler than Rails, and there are some interesting ideas
> in it. To quote the web page:
> 
> "Eleven is a programming language for creating reliable, scalable web
> applications. Applications are expressed in a high-level language with a
> simple, C-like syntax, from which the Eleven compiler generates
> complete, ready-to-run implementions in PHP or mod_perl.
> 
> "Eleven is designed for applications in which rapid development, high
> performance, and stability are critical - but total control over the
> look and feel is not (since Eleven generates most of the user interface
> automatically). Good examples are online exams and surveys, electronic
> voting, and business workflow applications."
> 
> Do any of you have any experience with Eleven? It looks to me like Rails
> *can* do everything Eleven does, but for a beginner trying to put
> together a quick-and-dirty Intranet application, Eleven would be a good
> bit simpler, especially if the implementor was not a Ruby programmer. Do
> any of you see anything in Eleven that Rails can''t do easily?
> 
Seem to be a very interesting language. However, I think the MVC pattern
behind the Rails is far more superior that what Eleven have. 

For example, this sub is copy from the ACME order entry example.

sub enterOrders ()
{
...

  while (1)
    {
      customer = "";
      product = "";
      quantity = "";

      display
        {
          object [position="header" class="birdseedHeader"
element="img"
src="http://eleven.sourceforge.net/image/birdseed-header.gif"
alt="ACME
Bird Seed order entry" width="250" height="64"]
("");
          print [position="left"] ("Menu", menu);
          print ("Enter order:");
          edit ("Customer: ",  customer);
          edit ("Seed type: ", product);
          edit ("Quantity: ",  quantity);
        }

      transient array order;
      order {''order_date''}  = now ();
      order {''customer_id''} = customer;
      order {''catalog_num''} = product;
      order {''quantity''}    = quantity;
      statesafe var status = orders.insert (order);

....
}

Seem to me that the display (view) and functionality (such as new order) are
Mixed in the same sub. I don''t know the pattern Eleven used, but if you
allow to mixed Control functionality, and View together as in this example.
I don''t think Eleven can handle a complex Web Application. 

Oh, I don''t see any model too .. 

For short, Eleven may be good for a small WebApplication. Without MVC or
some from of Model, Control View saparation, I doubt that it could take on
a complex web application.

Tom

Anocha Yimsiriwattana wrote:
> M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:
<snip>
>>Do any of you have any experience with Eleven? It looks to me like Rails
>>*can* do everything Eleven does, but for a beginner trying to put
>>together a quick-and-dirty Intranet application, Eleven would be a good
>>bit simpler, especially if the implementor was not a Ruby programmer. Do
>>any of you see anything in Eleven that Rails can''t do easily?
>>
> 
> Seem to be a very interesting language. However, I think the MVC pattern
> behind the Rails is far more superior that what Eleven have. 
> 
<snip>
> For short, Eleven may be good for a small WebApplication. Without MVC or
> some from of Model, Control View saparation, I doubt that it could take on
> a complex web application.
I don''t know about that - view is separated out to style sheets, and
the
Eleven language declares the controller actions quite nicely.  There are 
  no inherent object facilities, but that doesn''t make it impossible to
use in a sensible way.  To me, it looks a lot like scaffold generation 
on steroids.  In fact, it might be nice to see an Eleven generator for 
Rails (or at least a target for Ruby).  Since they''re already
targetting
more than one language, there might be an easy way in.  I just had a 
quick once-over of the PHP generator (it''s in Scheme, which is 
refreshing), and while the code it generates looks to be relatively 
monoblocky, it''s certainly not complex.  Either a Ruby port of the
whole
shebang or a Rails target for the generator should be quite feasible... 
  I guess that''s another weekend''s playing for me at some
point :-)

One thing I do like about it, and something that has cropped up as a 
criticism of Rails in the past, is that Eleven makes flow of control 
obvious, and multi-form data submission trivial.  Tying together more 
than one generated flow into a more complex application (if that''s 
possible - it''s not immediately obvious) would seem to be an extremely 
powerful way of defining web applications - at least as a starting point 
- and it would be very useful to have something like it available in Rails.

-- 
Alex