rsl2 and granite foundation

(defunct)

this is second version of RSL, a complete rewrite. active 1997-1999. RSL-1 was a very different beast.

this is a snapshot of version 2.5-b22

what's this?

"granite foundation" was a web app server and programming language (RSL v2) that had very tight integration between the dynamic language RSL and the implementation language, C++. It had a scalable process architecture, a JSON-like object serialization interface, template based code generator, dynamically generated documentation, double ref counted memory management and smart pointers in C++

what's here

• core_rsl: startup files for different server applications
• cryptogrpahy: crypto integration
• doc: some documentation
• granitecore: the language rsl and its runtime system and process architecture
• D: C++ integration, smart pointers
• nsapi: Netscape web server integration
• packages: various libraries (eg packages/templatizer is the code generator)

what might be interesting here?

• the lexer, parser, building an AST
• low level C++ integration, loading shared libraries and instantiating C++ objects of uknown type
• code generator, code rewriter
• high level C++ integration between the dynamic language RSL and C++, sharing methods and data members
• inheritance and method dispatch
• formal parameters with expected values can define a method
• the fact that a lot of low level operations can be written in C++ directly but can manipulate objects directy accessible from RSL

what kinda sucks?

the core language is fun and interesting, but IMHO it is too traditional, not boundary pushing. Looks too much like C++. too many compromises to look and feel like C++ or Java. public, private, protected come to mind.

the c++ integration is interesting but the D thing (note that there are a lot of projects called D, this one is mine) may have taken it a bit too far.

what's not here, what doesn't work

• this was built using Rogue Wave Tools.h++, a set of C++ data structures, which I think was meant to be compatible with the then in-progress but not yet standardized C++ stl (as of 1996-97). So maybe it could work with some minor modifications. I haven't tried.

• the shared library system might not work on modern Linux systems, it was simultaneously developed under Slackware and SunOS 4, and later ported to Solaris and Irix, using g++, cygwin, and Sun compilers. Who knows.

• crypto requires RSA products, not here

• nsapi obviously required the old Netscape server

• no applications, demo code, client specifics, etc.

if all those issues were solved, what could this be used for?

• it could probably be a runtime to run programs written in plain RSL, or a combination of RSL and C++, standalone, as a single threaded server, or as a multiprocess cluster.

• one could write an interface to a web server and write web apps.

• the ECI interface could be slightly modified to serve JSON. The syntax has one minor difference, objects have a classname associated with them, there are no plain objects. That also could be easily changed.

original readme:

How to make the GF2.5 system
--- -- ---- --- ----- ------
1) cd to the granite directory
2) Determine which compilier to use
3) makeit set
    respond with sun, cyg, or gnu
4) makeit system 

other versions