DRAFT

What is nodecpp?

This project is an attempt to manifest learnings from node.js, Ruby on Rails, Python, and other frameworks into a new framework targeting C++11.

TODO: Discuss the pros and cons related to "coding by convention" experienced by Ruby on Rails folks, and PHP folks, etc...

Idea

Nodecpp is a cross-platform event-based application model for C++11. The platform's fundamental design component is asynchronicity through continuations via C++11 lambdas. For example:

/* setup a server to dynamically return GET requests from an alternate host */
http_get_route("/", [](const http_request_ptr_t &req, const http_response_ptr_t &response) {
	http_get("http://example.com/proxy/dest", 80 /*port*/, [=](const http_client_response_t &res) {
		response->set_response(200, "OK", res.fields["Content-type"]);
		response->send(res.body);
		response->end();
	});
});

The deliverable of this project will be a set of portable source code for use for free as a base for new application development. Along with this base, we should be able to provide a set of components to accomplish basic tasks, like accepting HTTP connections, connecting to file-shares, or starting multi-cast IP transmissions. Longer term, we might aspire to building a responsive and cancellable client-side graphical UI or rendering framework.

Threading and compute thoughts are around using thread pools for task dispatch, but maintaining the main thread event loop for handling continuation after compute.

This project will rely on contributors like you. If you'd like to be involved, please get in touch.

TODO: discuss promises, futures, etc...

TODO: discuss how a framework in C++11 can equally (or better) address the goals of the the "coding by convention" folks.

TODO: discuss the bar for success when it comes to "ease of development." Meaning, is there a way to know when/if we've created a platform that is more efficient in terms of developer time than other application development platforms?

TODO: discuss feelings of texty people coming from Ruby/Python around string manipulation and whether C++11 syntax is or is not deep enough to address text manipulation ease-of-use issues.

TODO: look into hooks for easy calls to/from other languages.

TODO: target non-goals, like having a REPL.

Phase 1 - Proof of concept

In order to prove that this idea can scale, the first project should enable serving static files from a front-end server at roughly the same benchmark performance characterstics as high-speed servers such as nginx, and node.js. (TODO: identify goal benchmarks.)

HTTP Client

• Issuing requests
• Redirection handling
• Simple APIs
  • GET
  • POST

HTTP Server

• Listening
• Parsing Request Headers
• Routing
  • Dispatch via the routes table to the appropriate app-defined callback
  • Enable middleware / Next() continuations
• http_respond_t design/impl
  • Simple Content-length
  • Chunking
  • Redirects
  • Errors API
• Keep-alive for multi-requests

SSL integration (https)

File I/O

• Basic read
• Basic write
• Open memory-mapped
• File enumeration
• Directory/File change notification
• Create directory
• Create file
• stat, etc...
• Flush

JSON

• DOM
• Streaming

Timers

Express-like features

• Static file serving

Later Phases

Database connect

• RDBMS
  • MySQL
  • Postgres
• NoSQL
  • MongoDB
  • Redis
  • ...
• ORM

IPC

• Pipes
• Shared memory
• Spawning processes

Clustering

Compute

• Compute tasks
• Task pool
• GPU compute integration

WebSocket Server

• Upgrading from HTTP connections
• Investigate proper callback API design

HTML parsing

• streaming templates

MVC Framework

XML

• DOM
• Streaming

...

Build Instructions

• Install md2pdf

From within the nodepp directory:

make

-- Will Bradley