

Review my startup: Akshell, now with CommonJS support - korenyushkin
http://blog.akshell.com/Anton-Korenyushkin/Akshell-02/

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ianb
I'd like to see a clearer up-front description on the front page. This is
clearly for people-in-the-know, so just letting me categorize this quickly
would be really helpful.

I _think_ this is something for doing server-side Javascript development, with
integrated hosting and an IDE. It's not clear to me how things like
persistence work; since Javascript is somewhat novel in this role these things
aren't obvious. It's not like PHP, where I'd just assume MySQL.

I see you are talking about new programmers using this, but I wouldn't try to
talk to both audiences at once. Either have a separate entry page for new
programmers, or just skip it (realistically it's only early adopters who are
going to be interested in this for the near future).

~~~
korenyushkin
Your comment does makes sense. I should change the front page.

Applications has two places to store persistent data: database and file
storage. The latter is rather common. The database is implemented on top of a
custom query language designed for embedding into JavaScript.

Here is a database API description: <http://www.akshell.com/docs/0.2/guide/db-
and-fs/>

And query language description:
<http://www.akshell.com/docs/0.2/ref/core/db/#query-language>

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olegp
From talking to Anton, it seems like GitHub integration is next up on the TODO
list. Any feedback on whether you'd find that useful and how you think it
should be done would be really appreciated.

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icey
What does it do? The blog posting doesn't mention anything except recent
changes to a product with no description.

~~~
korenyushkin
It enables users to develop web applications is JavaScript and host them in
the cloud. The only tool required for development is a web browser. And the
deployment is instant.

It also features an environment where applications can interact with each
other; so they could be really modular and social.

~~~
apgwoz
Is this similar to what AppJet originally attempted to do? If so, have you
attempted to contact them to see what types of problems they encountered
before focusing on EtherPad?

~~~
korenyushkin
Akshell targets more "heavy" applications than AppJet. E.g., it has a
relational database and AppJet had key-value store. I contacted JGate guys.
JGate is an AppJet successor <http://apps.jgate.de/>.

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silentrob
You should have a look at the Joyent Smart Playform. I think it is very
similar, supports CommonJS and Git style deploy. (Plus it is open source)
<http://github.com/joyent/smart-platform>

~~~
korenyushkin
Thank you for the link. I'll study it.

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rryan
It anagrams to Haskell, so I assumed this was some DSL for writing Javascript
in Haskell...

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tlrobinson
Awesome, glad to see CommonJS modules and JSGI in there!

Have you looked at the ECMAScript Proxy proposal? You might want to consider
using the API.

~~~
korenyushkin
Yes, I have looked. I implemented a simpler Proxy:
<http://www.akshell.com/docs/0.2/ref/core/misc/#Proxy>

It's more restrictive, but much more easy to use.

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cmelbye
Awesome! I still want the ability to run it on my own server, though. You
aren't going to get people to use it by locking them in to the platform.

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ianb
Have you looked at Bespin for an editor/IDE?

~~~
korenyushkin
I have, but decided to stick with EditArea.

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Kilimanjaro
Everything JS has my approval.

