Forum OpenACS Development: Re: Other Programming Languages (was Re: API Browser Support)

From what i understood from Carl is that he has an application in mind, where one can use the API-Browser to manage/browser/navigate through a code-base that does not have to be executed in the OpenACS environment. That code to be managed might be implemented in arbitrary programming languages.

Concerning the languages that are executed within NaviServer/OpenACS environment. Aside of the fact, that nsf can be used for defining multiple languages (including domain specific languages), there is e.g. support for PHP (since 4.99.19 PHP 7.3.5, Stefan did the enrollment module in PHP for canceled OpenACS conference last year), and there is an ocaml module for NaviServer, etc.. Last but not least, the full code basis of Tcl/NaviServer is in C, most modules/packages are implemented in C.. why not including these in browser? On the server-side we have as well SQL. And then, we have the client-side languages, with java-script, CSS, etc.)

Yes, I've been looking into leveraging the code exploration features already built for OpenACS in the API browser but as I look at OpenACS more, I am also evaluating if XOWiki is a better path for the same purpose. The source code for the target system could be converted to cross referenced HTML pages through an external tool and then those pages could be imported into XOWiki where metadata and additional links can be added.

Carl

This sound certainly doable.

Some of the features will be different (call graph, test-coverage, ...) ... but depending on the generator tool, it might be even better.