Smart Mobile Studio 3.0 and beyond

With Smart Mobile Studio 3.0 entering its second beta, Smart Pascal developers are set for a boost in quality, creativity and power. We have worked extremely hard on the product this past year, including a complete rewrite of all our visual controls (and I mean all). We also introduced a completely new theme engine, one that completely de-couples visual appearance from structural architecture (it also allows scripting inside the CSS theme files).

All of that could be enough for a version bump, but we didn’t stop there. Much of the sub-strata in Smart has been re-implemented. Focus has been on stability, speed and future growth. The system is now divided into a set of name-spaces (System, SmartCL, SmartNJ, Phonegap, and Espruino), making it easier to navigate between the units as well as expanding the codebase in the future.

To better understand the namespaces and why this is a good idea, let’s go through how our units are organized.

The RTL is made to expand easily and preserve as much functionality as possible

• The System namespace is the foundation. It contains clean, platform independent code. Meaning code that doesn’t rely on the DOM (browser) or runtime (node). Focus here is on universal code, and to establish common object-pascal classes.
• Our SmartCL namespace contains visual code, meaning code and controls that targets the browser and the DOM. SmartCL rests on the System namespace and draws functionality from it. Through partial classes we also expand classes introduced in the system namespace. A good example is System.Time.pas and SmartCL.Time.pas. The latter expands the class TW3Dispatch with functionality that will only work in the DOM.
• SmartNJ is our high-level nodejs namespace. Here you find classes with fairly complex behavior such as servers, memory buffers, processes and auxillary classes. SmartNJ draws from the system namespace just like SmartCL. This was done to avoid multiple implementations of streams, utility classes and common functions. Being able to enjoy the same functionality under all platforms is a very powerful thing.
• Phonegap is our namespace for mobile devices. A mobile application is basically a normal visual application using SmartCL, but where you access extra functionality through phonegap. Things like access to a device’s photos, filesystem, dialogs and so on is all delegated via phonegap.
• Espruino is a namespace for working with Espruino micro-controllers. This has been a very low-level affair so far, due to size limitation on these devices. But with our recent changes you can now, when you need to, tap into the system namespace for more demanding behavior.

As you can see there is a lot of cool stuff in Smart Mobile Studio, and our codebase is maturing nicely. With out new organization we are able to expand both horizontally and vertically without turning the codebase into a gigantic mess (the VCL being a prime example of how not to implement a multi-platform framework).

Common behavior

One of the coolest things we have added has to be the new storage device classes. As you probably know the browser has a somewhat “limited” storage mechanism. You are stuck with name-value pairs in the cache, or a filesystem that is profoundly frustrating to work with. To remedy this we took the time to implement a virtual filesystem (in memory filesystem) that emits data to the cache; we also implemented a virtual storage device stack on top of it, one for each target (!).

In short, if a target has IO capability, we have implemented a storage “driver” for it. So instead of you having to write 4-5 different storage mechanisms – you can now write the storage code once, and it works everywhere.

This is a pretty cool system because it doesn’t limit us to local device storage. We can have device classes that talk to Google-Storage, One-Drive, Dropbox and so on. It also opens up for custom storage solutions should you already have this pre-made on your server.

Database support, a quick overview

Databases have always been available in Smart Mobile Studio. We have units for WebSQL, IndexDB and SQLite. In fact, we even compiled SQLite3 from native C code to asm.js, meaning that the whole database engine is now pure JavaScript and no-longer dependant on W3C standards.

Each DB engine is implemented according to a framework

Besides these we also have TW3Dataset which is a clean, Smart Pascal implementation of a single table dataset (somewhat inspired by Delphi’s TClientDataset). In our previous beta we upgraded TW3Dataset with a robust expression parser, meaning that you can now set filters just like Delphi does. And its all written in Smart Mobile Studio which means there are no dependencies.

 

And ofcourse, there is also direct connections to Embarcadero Datasnap servers, and Remobjects SDK servers. This is excellent if you have an already existing Delphi infrastructure.

A unified DB framework

If you were hoping for a universal DB framework in beta-2 of v3.0, sadly that will not be the case. The good news is that databases should make it into v3.2 at the latest.

Databases looks simple: table, rows and columns right? But since each database engine known to JavaScript is written different from the next, our model has to take height for these and be dynamic enough to deal with them.

The model we used with WebSQL is turning out to be the best way forward I feel, but its important to leave room for reflection and improvements.

So getting our DB framework established is a priority for us, and we have placed it on our timeline for (at the latest) v3.2. But im hoping to have it done by v3.1. So it’s a little ahead of us, but we need that time to properly evolve the framework.

Smart Desktop [a.k.a Amibian.js]

The feedback we have received on our Smart Desktop demos have been pretty overwhelming. It is also nice to know that our prototype is being used to deliver software to schools and educational centers. So our desktop is not going away!

Fancy a game of Quake at 60+ fps? Web assembly rocks!

But we are not rushing into this without some thought first. The desktop will become a project type like I have written about many times before. So you will be able to create both the desktop and client applications for it. The desktop is suitable for software that requires a windowing environment (a bit like Sencha or similar frameworks). It is also brilliant for kiosk displays and as a remote application hub.

Our new storage device system came largely from Amibian, and with these now a part of our RTL we can clean up the prototype considerably!

Smart assembler

It may sound like an oxymoron, but a lab project we created while testing our parser framework (system.text.parser unit) turned into an exercise in compiler / assembler making. We implemented a virtual machine that runs instructions represented by bytecodes (fairly straight ahead stuff). It supports the most common assembler methods, vaguely inspired by the Motorolla 68k processor with a good dose of ARM thrown in for good measure.

Yes that is a full parser, assembler and runtime model

If you ponder why on earth this would be interesting, consider the following: most web platforms allow for scripting by third-party developers. And by opening up for that these, the websites themselves become prone to attacks and security breaches. There is no denying that any JS based framework is very fragile when potentially hundreds of unknown developers are hacking away at it.

But what if you could offer third parties to write plugins using more traditional languages? Perhaps a dialect of pascal, a subset of basic or perhaps C#? Wouldnt that be much better? A language and (more importantly) runtime that you have 100% control over.

While our assembler, disassembler and runtime is still in its infancy (and meant as a demo and excercise), it has future potential. We also made the instructions in such a way that JIT compiling large chunks of it is possible – and the output (or codegen) can be replaced by for example web assembly.

Right now it’s just a curiosity that people can play with. But when we have more time I will implement high-level parsers and codegens that emit code via this assembler. Suddenly we have a language that runs under node.js, in the browser or any modern JS runtime engine – and its all done using nothing but Smart Mobile Studio.

Well, stay tuned for more!