cpp-netlib-devel

[cpp-netlib-devel] cpp-netlib status (including Pion integration)

[Matt T. <mat...@gm...>]

Heya folks,

I'm just wondering about the status of cpp-netlib?  Dean, Glyn, are
you guys still working on the project?

Our group is looking to make REST calls and, as we're already heavily
using boost, cpp-netlib seemed the strongest candidate.

Pion also looked like a great candidate but I saw that Mike announced
(http://www.pion.org/node/77) that his intention was to merge Pion to
cpp-netlib and, ultimately, to put together a library that could be
submitted to boost.  Sounds great to me!  However that was over a year
ago and although some integration seems to have occurred there doesn't
seem to have been any work for some time.  I also notice that Pion has
had a number of releases since.  Is the intention still to merge more
of Pion to cpp-netlib?

Assuming the project is still active I'll do what I can to help out.

Cheers,
Matt

Re: [cpp-netlib-devel] cpp-netlib status (including Pion integration)

[Dean M. B. <mik...@gm...>]

Hi Matt!

On Tue, May 26, 2009 at 9:59 AM, Matt Trentini <mat...@gm...> wrote:
> Heya folks,
>
> I'm just wondering about the status of cpp-netlib?  Dean, Glyn, are
> you guys still working on the project?
>

I'm currently really busy with the day job taking on a more important
role in the team.

At this time I'm waiting for the solidification of the next C++
standard (C++0x) before doing any major work on the software.

> Our group is looking to make REST calls and, as we're already heavily
> using boost, cpp-netlib seemed the strongest candidate.
>

I personally am already using cpp-netlib in a couple of production
projects already and I can say it's proven to be stable enough for
REST use cases. I have successfully used cpp-netlib to interface with
Amazon AWS in a previous project and I think that's good enough
quality to build software around (if I may say so myself). ;-)

> Pion also looked like a great candidate but I saw that Mike announced
> (http://www.pion.org/node/77) that his intention was to merge Pion to
> cpp-netlib and, ultimately, to put together a library that could be
> submitted to boost.  Sounds great to me!  However that was over a year
> ago and although some integration seems to have occurred there doesn't
> seem to have been any work for some time.  I also notice that Pion has
> had a number of releases since.  Is the intention still to merge more
> of Pion to cpp-netlib?
>

I think the client side of Pion is what's slated to be merged into the
cpp-netlib.

The server-side HTTP implementation however is something that I'm
currently fighting for to be released by my employer as Open Source
software. We've been using this HTTP server internally in production
and has proven to be flexible, extensible, and high performance enough
that I think it's worth the wait.

> Assuming the project is still active I'll do what I can to help out.

That sounds great.

I'd say it still is alive in my heart, although I cannot do much of
the heavy lifting at the moment given my (changing) role in the day
job. But FWIW, I am personally waiting for the next standard before
implementing much of the things I'm envisioning for the library. More
specifically, I'm waiting for:

- standardized futures
- rvalue references and move semantics (for better performance)
- variadic templates
- auto and decltype

Much of the code would work without these features but if writing more
and more features would be an effort that later would have to be
re-written I'm thinking of deferring the bulk of the work for later.

In the meantime though, you can get the latest released version and
try using it in your project -- we would love to hear what your
experience is like. In case you need anything specific addressed, I'm
sure we can work together to make it happen.

Thanks for dropping a line!

-- 
Dean Michael Berris | Software Engineer, Friendster, Inc.
blog.cplusplus-soup.com | twitter.com/mikhailberis |
linkedin.com/in/mikhailberis | profiles.friendster.com/mikhailberis |
deanberris.com

Re: [cpp-netlib-devel] cpp-netlib status (including Pion integration)

[Michael D. <mi...@at...>]

Hi Matt,

Speaking only for myself here..   Merging it in was the intention but  
I was probably way too optimistic on my time availability to help make  
that happen.  Reality set in and it just never really developed enough  
momentum..  There was an attempt to try to get some GSoC help  
(including some great applicants who were interested in working on it)  
but that was unfortunately unsuccessful.

I'm still in support of the idea, but as I understand it, cpp-netlib  
has come a long way on its own and is now a very usable client-side  
library.  Although pion-net has some client side capabilities, its  
strength is really in building a fast & extensible Boost-based HTTP  
server and that is really what it was designed for (its client side  
API is a bit kludgy right now because of that, IMHO).  Although we  
continue to release updates to pion-net and use it extensively within  
our products, I don't believe Atomic Labs has made any really big  
changes to the library over the past year.

So, if you're looking to build a fast HTTP server interface into your  
application, pion-net is probably the better choice.  But if you're  
looking for a client-side library and cpp-netlib does what you need,  
then it is probably the way to go.

Take care,
-Mike

P.S.  I'm happy to support and work with anyone who can help make the  
merge happen.  If we can end up merging the two (without loss of  
functionality), I'll be happy to switch over to using the new library  
in the rest of our (Atomic Labs') code.  Unfortunately, I just don't  
have a lot of time available these days to lead the effort myself.


On May 25, 2009, at 6:59 PM, Matt Trentini wrote:

> Heya folks,
>
> I'm just wondering about the status of cpp-netlib?  Dean, Glyn, are
> you guys still working on the project?
>
> Our group is looking to make REST calls and, as we're already heavily
> using boost, cpp-netlib seemed the strongest candidate.
>
> Pion also looked like a great candidate but I saw that Mike announced
> (http://www.pion.org/node/77) that his intention was to merge Pion to
> cpp-netlib and, ultimately, to put together a library that could be
> submitted to boost.  Sounds great to me!  However that was over a year
> ago and although some integration seems to have occurred there doesn't
> seem to have been any work for some time.  I also notice that Pion has
> had a number of releases since.  Is the intention still to merge more
> of Pion to cpp-netlib?
>
> Assuming the project is still active I'll do what I can to help out.
>
> Cheers,
> Matt
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Register Now for Creativity and Technology (CaT), June 3rd, NYC. CaT
> is a gathering of tech-side developers & brand creativity  
> professionals. Meet
> the minds behind Google Creative Lab, Visual Complexity, Processing, &
> iPhoneDevCamp asthey present alongside digital heavyweights like  
> Barbarian
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> _______________________________________________
> Cpp-netlib-devel mailing list
> Cpp...@li...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/cpp-netlib-devel
>

Re: [cpp-netlib-devel] cpp-netlib status (including Pion integration)

[Matt T. <mat...@gm...>]

Heya Mike,

> Speaking only for myself here..   Merging it in was the intention but
> I was probably way too optimistic on my time availability to help make
> that happen.

You wouldn't be a software engineer if you weren't optimistic.  ;)

But it does seem like some of Pion got in - parser.ipp looks mostly
like Pion code?

> Reality set in and it just never really developed enough
> momentum..  There was an attempt to try to get some GSoC help
> (including some great applicants who were interested in working on it)
> but that was unfortunately unsuccessful.

I saw that; disappointing.

> I'm still in support of the idea, but as I understand it, cpp-netlib
> has come a long way on its own and is now a very usable client-side
> library.

Yes, it definitely seems to be.

> Although pion-net has some client side capabilities, its
> strength is really in building a fast & extensible Boost-based HTTP
> server and that is really what it was designed for (its client side
> API is a bit kludgy right now because of that, IMHO).  Although we
> continue to release updates to pion-net and use it extensively within
> our products, I don't believe Atomic Labs has made any really big
> changes to the library over the past year.

Makes sense, thanks for the update.

> So, if you're looking to build a fast HTTP server interface into your
> application, pion-net is probably the better choice.  But if you're
> looking for a client-side library and cpp-netlib does what you need,
> then it is probably the way to go.

That makes things clearer.  Currently we're ok with our
asio-butchered-example server but I'll keep Pion in mind if we're
thinking of upgrading.

> P.S.  I'm happy to support and work with anyone who can help make the
> merge happen.  If we can end up merging the two (without loss of
> functionality), I'll be happy to switch over to using the new library
> in the rest of our (Atomic Labs') code.  Unfortunately, I just don't
> have a lot of time available these days to lead the effort myself.

Being in a similar position myself I completely understand.

Thanks for your efforts and your reply!

Cheers,
Matt

Re: [cpp-netlib-devel] cpp-netlib status (including Pion integration)

[Matt T. <mat...@gm...>]

Heya Dean,

> I'm currently really busy with the day job taking on a more important
> role in the team.

I sympathise with your "pain"!  ;)

> I personally am already using cpp-netlib in a couple of production
> projects already and I can say it's proven to be stable enough for
> REST use cases. I have successfully used cpp-netlib to interface with
> Amazon AWS in a previous project and I think that's good enough
> quality to build software around (if I may say so myself). ;-)

I've been putting together a few small applications using cpp-netlib
but I'm about to integrate it into our main codebase and so will be
relying on it heavily over the next couple of weeks/months.

I've got a couple of specific issues/queries but I'll leave them for
another email.

After spending a bit of time looking over the codebase I'd agree that
the quality of the code is pretty high.  It's initially quite dense
(mostly due to the fusion compile-time templates and tags) and
documentation is a little sparse (are you considering publishing the
doco?) but once you get a feel for it the design seems sound and the
code solid.

> The server-side HTTP implementation however is something that I'm
> currently fighting for to be released by my employer as Open Source
> software. We've been using this HTTP server internally in production
> and has proven to be flexible, extensible, and high performance enough
> that I think it's worth the wait.

Good luck with that, I'm sure the C++ community would appreciate it.
FWIW we're currently using a modified version of one the boost::asio
examples to handle incoming http requests.

> I am personally waiting for the next standard before implementing much of the things I'm envisioning for the library.

I'm looking forward to the next standard too but I wouldn't have
thought it would hold you up too much?

> More specifically, I'm waiting for:
>
> - standardized futures

Absolutely.  Anthony Williams has been doing some great work in this
space (http://www.justsoftwaresolutions.co.uk/files/futures_documentation.html).
 Looking forward to seeing his future library in boost soon (as I
recall it's been accepted but not integrated yet).

> - rvalue references and move semantics (for better performance)
> - variadic templates
> - auto and decltype

All useful, for sure.  I'm also keen to see lambdas.

> Much of the code would work without these features but if writing more
> and more features would be an effort that later would have to be
> re-written I'm thinking of deferring the bulk of the work for later.

Well, boost certainly appreciates compatibility with older compilers
so if you are going for acceptance...  :)

> In the meantime though, you can get the latest released version and
> try using it in your project -- we would love to hear what your
> experience is like. In case you need anything specific addressed, I'm
> sure we can work together to make it happen.

Will do!  I've been hesitant to post because I haven't really
understood the library well enough but I think I've got enough
experience now that I (hopefully) won't be wasting everyone's time.

Thanks for such a prompt response.

Cheers,
Matt

Re: [cpp-netlib-devel] cpp-netlib status (including Pion integration)

[Dean M. B. <mik...@gm...>]

On Tue, May 26, 2009 at 11:56 AM, Matt Trentini <mat...@gm...> wrote:
>
>> I'm currently really busy with the day job taking on a more important
>> role in the team.
>
> I sympathise with your "pain"!  ;)
>

Thanks. :-D

>> I personally am already using cpp-netlib in a couple of production
>> projects already and I can say it's proven to be stable enough for
>> REST use cases. I have successfully used cpp-netlib to interface with
>> Amazon AWS in a previous project and I think that's good enough
>> quality to build software around (if I may say so myself). ;-)
>
> I've been putting together a few small applications using cpp-netlib
> but I'm about to integrate it into our main codebase and so will be
> relying on it heavily over the next couple of weeks/months.
>

Sweet! :-)

> I've got a couple of specific issues/queries but I'll leave them for
> another email.
>
> After spending a bit of time looking over the codebase I'd agree that
> the quality of the code is pretty high.  It's initially quite dense
> (mostly due to the fusion compile-time templates and tags) and
> documentation is a little sparse (are you considering publishing the
> doco?) but once you get a feel for it the design seems sound and the
> code solid.
>

The internal documentation isn't really a priority for me (personally)
basically because I believe the code should be readable enough on its
own -- so that I (or others) don't have to maintain the internal
documentation and the external documentation. Sure, you can generate
doxygen documentation, but that would only get so far IMO.

What I spent some time on is working on the actual gears that make the
internals work and describing the whole picture in the architecture
documentation. Some of the examples are meant to be guides, and if I
attempt to write about the idioms used in the code, it's going to be a
book like what Andrei Alexandrescu and other great authors have
already written before me. :-D

>> The server-side HTTP implementation however is something that I'm
>> currently fighting for to be released by my employer as Open Source
>> software. We've been using this HTTP server internally in production
>> and has proven to be flexible, extensible, and high performance enough
>> that I think it's worth the wait.
>
> Good luck with that, I'm sure the C++ community would appreciate it.
> FWIW we're currently using a modified version of one the boost::asio
> examples to handle incoming http requests.
>

Thanks. :-)

>> I am personally waiting for the next standard before implementing much of the things I'm envisioning for the library.
>
> I'm looking forward to the next standard too but I wouldn't have
> thought it would hold you up too much?
>

Right, that and the day job is giving me much to be busy on. ;-)

>> More specifically, I'm waiting for:
>>
>> - standardized futures
>
> Absolutely.  Anthony Williams has been doing some great work in this
> space (http://www.justsoftwaresolutions.co.uk/files/futures_documentation.html).
>  Looking forward to seeing his future library in boost soon (as I
> recall it's been accepted but not integrated yet).
>

Yup. And I'm looking forward to an STL that implements its own
threadpool -- that way I can use them in the asynchronous client
version I'm thinking about implementing.

>> - rvalue references and move semantics (for better performance)
>> - variadic templates
>> - auto and decltype
>
> All useful, for sure.  I'm also keen to see lambdas.
>

Lambdas are cool on their own. :-) But for building cpp-netlib I don't
see it as being an integral part of what I am envisioning the code
would look like. Maybe for supporting asynchronous handlers, users of
the library can rely on lambdas, but internally I don't see the need
for it just yet.

>> Much of the code would work without these features but if writing more
>> and more features would be an effort that later would have to be
>> re-written I'm thinking of deferring the bulk of the work for later.
>
> Well, boost certainly appreciates compatibility with older compilers
> so if you are going for acceptance...  :)
>

You're right. :D I should clear some of the modifications I've done
for the employer so that it can be checked into the source tree.
Hopefully they'll be keen on getting more open source code out sooner
than later. ;-)

>> In the meantime though, you can get the latest released version and
>> try using it in your project -- we would love to hear what your
>> experience is like. In case you need anything specific addressed, I'm
>> sure we can work together to make it happen.
>
> Will do!  I've been hesitant to post because I haven't really
> understood the library well enough but I think I've got enough
> experience now that I (hopefully) won't be wasting everyone's time.
>

That definitely sounds encouraging to me. :-)

> Thanks for such a prompt response.
>

No worries, don't forget to let us know about your progress and
experiences with the library! :-)

-- 
Dean Michael Berris | Software Engineer, Friendster, Inc.
blog.cplusplus-soup.com | twitter.com/mikhailberis |
linkedin.com/in/mikhailberis | profiles.friendster.com/mikhailberis |
deanberris.com

Re: [cpp-netlib-devel] cpp-netlib status (including Pion integration)

[Glyn M. <gly...@gm...>]

Hi Matt,

2009/5/26 Matt Trentini <mat...@gm...>

> Heya folks,
>
> I'm just wondering about the status of cpp-netlib?  Dean, Glyn, are
> you guys still working on the project?
>

I'd say the status is that it's alive, just not very active.  I also have
the same problem with committing time and energy to this project as Mike and
Dean.

I'd be interested in hearing more about what you're using cpp-netlib for and
about any ideas you can contribute.
Thanks for your interest.
Glyn


> Our group is looking to make REST calls and, as we're already heavily
> using boost, cpp-netlib seemed the strongest candidate.
>
> Pion also looked like a great candidate but I saw that Mike announced
> (http://www.pion.org/node/77) that his intention was to merge Pion to
> cpp-netlib and, ultimately, to put together a library that could be
> submitted to boost.  Sounds great to me!  However that was over a year
> ago and although some integration seems to have occurred there doesn't
> seem to have been any work for some time.  I also notice that Pion has
> had a number of releases since.  Is the intention still to merge more
> of Pion to cpp-netlib?
>
> Assuming the project is still active I'll do what I can to help out.
>
> Cheers,
> Matt
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Register Now for Creativity and Technology (CaT), June 3rd, NYC. CaT
> is a gathering of tech-side developers & brand creativity professionals.
> Meet
> the minds behind Google Creative Lab, Visual Complexity, Processing, &
> iPhoneDevCamp asthey present alongside digital heavyweights like Barbarian
> Group, R/GA, & Big Spaceship. http://www.creativitycat.com
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