Comments on: Fybit Riatrax4Js: Program YUI in Java

By: YUI Theater — Adam Granicz: “Robust and Rapid Web Development with WebSharper” (57 min.) | Sachin Handiekar

Wed, 15 Sep 2010 16:26:28 +0000

[...] typed, fast, tightly integrated development experience with deployment to rich web applications. As Fybit’s Riatrax4JS and yui4java do for Java developers, WebSharper brings the power of YUI 2 to F# developers, making [...]

By: Erol

Erol — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 16:34:51 +0000

Thanks Gurin for the post. We did have a look at your project and we think it is indeed very interesting. In fact, we also had a look at the
java2script compiler when starting with our product and then decided on a different design because of the points listed below.

Fybit is using a custom Bytecode-to-JavaScript analyzer/compiler. Here are some of the differences to java2script:

- Fybit apps can use one source base for both client and server parts. The compiler transparently inserts remoting code between browser and web server. This is really useful for browsing in the IDE, automated refactoring etc.

- Fybit focuses on overall performance of the generated JavaScript application: For example, all required code (including native libraries) are merged into a single, minified JavaScript file.

- Fybit does a static analysis to eliminate most of the overhead of the Java runtime (class loading, initialization etc). For that to be effective, we impose limits on what you can do with reflection.

- Fybit translates bytecode. This means: (1) You can use libraries where you don’t have the source code or where you don’t want to integrate the
source code into the build process. (2) You can use whatever toolchain you desire and then run the final package through the compiler (3) The analysis and compilation is relatively fast because bytecode is a binary format.

- We were able to easily add debug mode.

Regards,
Erol

By: Sebastián Gurin

Sebastián Gurin — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 23:05:26 +0000

Hi. This project is very similar to my project yui4java.sourceforge.net that contains a YUI 2 java api for the java2script.sourceforge.net java to javascript compiler (an eclipse plugin), a project in which i’m also involved. I think both projects share similar characteristics, I wonder, which java to javascript compiler riatrax4js use?

for a yui demo in 100% writen in java with many examples and java source code available, check http://yui4java.sourceforge.net/yui/org.sgx.j2s.yui.test.yuidemo.Main.html

By: YUI Theater — Adam Granicz: “Robust and Rapid Web Development with WebSharper” (57 min.) » Yahoo! User Interface Blog (YUIBlog)

Sat, 24 Apr 2010 04:50:33 +0000

By: yui4java: A New Java-to-JavaScript Translator Using YUI 2 » Yahoo! User Interface Blog (YUIBlog)

Tue, 13 Apr 2010 20:28:41 +0000

[...] inviting the community to take a look at his new yui4java project. The project, somewhat like Fybit’s Riatrax4JS, allows you to write web applications in Java with JavaScript (leveraging YUI 2’s component [...]

By: Erol

Erol — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 19:40:06 +0000

Good point! It is always difficult to answer questions regarding speed or performance since it depends on your system (hardware, OS, processes running, etc). But to give you an idea: the publication manager we implemented compiles 200 Java classes to 10’000 lines of JavaScript (62’000 if you count the lines from YUI) in 4 seconds on my 3 year old laptop. I think that is quite fast. Don’t forget that you will never have to compile all your code to JavaScript, but only the part you need in the browser. Regarding your second question: Yes, you have to know Java (obviously) and to some extent YUI. For example YUI’s principle of passing configuration arguments to a widget during creation. However, YUI is extremely well documented – and the documentation is available as Javadoc for the YUI Java classes we provide. Moreover, there are many YUI examples that you can learn from quickly. I recommend looking at the Fybit Showcase where you can view the code directly in the demo. It’s also a good idea to use the example project as a starting point when you begin to program.

By: janwen

janwen — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 09:13:12 +0000

how about Riatrax4Js’s speed?
in my option,translate the java code into the js file,it my cost a lot both the cpu or time!especially in a larger project!
and i think when using Riatrax4Js,the developer need to be familiar with java and YUI because if a developer do not know the yui widget or utilities,who can not understand what happened in the application such as if you know the Ajax and you can not know how write the server side code between the back and front!
anyway,i’ll try it to sure my assumption!