6 ms·

MiniMagAsm – a minimalistic but powerful CMS in assembly language

61 points by networked 12y ago

krzrak 12y ago
on a side note: they use Fossil SCM [1], which looks quite interesting - it offers not only distributed code versioning, but also distributed tickets and wiki. Comparison with git: http://www.fossil-scm.org/index.html/doc/tip/www/fossil-v-git.wiki http://www.fossil-scm.org/index.html/doc/tip/www/fossil-v-gi... [1] http://fossil-scm.org/ http://fossil-scm.org/
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- SomeCallMeTim 12y ago
  I've heard about it, and it does have an interesting feature set, but I've also heard negatives. The comparison with git is very shallow, seemingly based on misunderstandings of how git works. On branches they describe the Linus/Linux workflow, ignoring the fact that a more traditional workflow can also be supported by git. In fact "git flow" is a recommended workflow, and it's pretty much exactly what Fossil does (only with more flexible merging options). Sharding vs. Replication turns out to be a matter of defaults; otherwise there's no material difference. The web interface is cool, but I use GUI tools locally that are nicer and faster than any web interface could possibly be. Speaking of, there are a plethora of GUI tools available, free and for pay, for GIT. Rebase is one of my favorite Git features; they claim it's a feature that it doesn't exist in Fossil. Complexity is a good point, and git has famously bad command-line UI. I'm sure Fossil does a better job there; Mercurial and Bazaar certainly do. But git has the features I need, which isn't true of Mercurial or Bazaar, and git has a user base of a sufficient size (compared to Fossil) that I don't worry that I'll hit some corner case bug and lose data. Zed Shaw used to be a major fan of Fossil, for instance, but then he lost a repo irretrievably and swore off using it. His old site with essays seems to be down, or I'd link his posting about it. Having everything in an SQLite database means that SQLite usually will be safe, but if something does go wrong, well, you're screwed.
  - mtdewcmu 12y ago
    >>The comparison with git is very shallow, seemingly based on misunderstandings of how git works. It does sound like they misunderstand (or misrepresent) the way git works. git is very flexible and its capabilities and limitations follow from its distributed nature. If Fossil tries to be git with a smoother interface and more streamlined workflow, it's not surprising that its repos can go bad and lose your data.
ejr 12y ago
Interesting project. I'd love to look at the source and it is available at : http://chiselapp.com/user/johnfound/repository/MiniMagAsm/tree?ci=tip http://chiselapp.com/user/johnfound/repository/MiniMagAsm/tr... but you can visit the above address and download .zip files with the latest version The zip file has eluded me. I may not be looking hard enough for it.
- networked 12y ago
  You need to log in as "anonymous" to see ZIP and Tarball links.
fsiefken 12y ago
haven't tried it yet but it might be the fastest cms on earth, or perhaps a static markdown cms will be faster.
fencepost 12y ago
Interesting. On the plus side, it's a tiny fast CMS that can likely be used on minimal-ish hardware. On the down side, A) it's x86 assembler while most really minimal hardware these days is ARM-based, and B) it generates all of its HTML on the fly so there's a chance that decently-done caching with generation of static content will beat it, particularly in situations where MiniMagAsm is working through an entire directory structure to generate navigation. I think it's an interesting concept that might actually find some use in the real world if it was ARM assembler, but right now it's an ultralightweight solution that will run primarily on hardware that is unlikely to really need that light weight. It might be interesting to compare its performance to Blosxsom or its other-language derivatives, particularly with those in static generation mode instead of CGI mode.
- pekk 12y ago
  You are in favor of ARM for whatever reason but that doesn't mean that ARM is the definition of "really minimal".
  - fencepost 12y ago
    It's not so much that I favor ARM, just that there seems to be a huge variety of low-power (CPU and energy) systems out there based on the various levels of ARM architecture. Routers, development boards, smartphones, etc. all seem to run on ARM-licensed designs. If there's a similar quantity of x86-based low-power systems I'm not aware of it even in passing. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist, but it probably does mean that x86-based systems of the sort aren't widely internet-connected devices which means that an assembler-based CGI CMS is probably not really relevant for them. Edit: and I should add that by "really minimal" I'm not talking the true low-end of embedded microcontrollers at the Arduino level or below, I'm just talking about network-connectable devices with power consumption measured in single-digit watts.
mtdewcmu 12y ago
I'd like to see a non-minimalistic CMS in assembly language. That would be cool.
johnfound 12y ago
Hi. I am the author of MiniMagAsm. Actually MiniMagAsm is just an proof-of-concept, that can be used for small sites. I know that the performance can be improved by using some optimization tricks, but I simply don't need (for now) it to be faster. :) Also, it is true, that x86 hardware can run much heavier web engines, but think about that the same hardware can run more lightweight engines as MiniMagAsm. Anyway, the future of this project is probably towards using FastCGI or SCGI interfaces and maybe the use of some lightweight database engine - like SQLite. Ah, BTW, http://asm32.hopto.org http://asm32.hopto.org is actually my home desktop computer. :) Recently, the whole project has been moved to a commercial hosting: http://asm32.info http://asm32.info

61 points by networked 12y ago

on a side note: they use Fossil SCM [1], which looks quite interesting - it offers not only distributed code versioning, but also distributed tickets and wiki. Comparison with git: http://www.fossil-scm.org/index.html/doc/tip/www/fossil-v-git.wiki http://www.fossil-scm.org/index.html/doc/tip/www/fossil-v-gi... [1] http://fossil-scm.org/ http://fossil-scm.org/

deleted 12y ago
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SomeCallMeTim 12y ago
I've heard about it, and it does have an interesting feature set, but I've also heard negatives. The comparison with git is very shallow, seemingly based on misunderstandings of how git works. On branches they describe the Linus/Linux workflow, ignoring the fact that a more traditional workflow can also be supported by git. In fact "git flow" is a recommended workflow, and it's pretty much exactly what Fossil does (only with more flexible merging options). Sharding vs. Replication turns out to be a matter of defaults; otherwise there's no material difference. The web interface is cool, but I use GUI tools locally that are nicer and faster than any web interface could possibly be. Speaking of, there are a plethora of GUI tools available, free and for pay, for GIT. Rebase is one of my favorite Git features; they claim it's a feature that it doesn't exist in Fossil. Complexity is a good point, and git has famously bad command-line UI. I'm sure Fossil does a better job there; Mercurial and Bazaar certainly do. But git has the features I need, which isn't true of Mercurial or Bazaar, and git has a user base of a sufficient size (compared to Fossil) that I don't worry that I'll hit some corner case bug and lose data. Zed Shaw used to be a major fan of Fossil, for instance, but then he lost a repo irretrievably and swore off using it. His old site with essays seems to be down, or I'd link his posting about it. Having everything in an SQLite database means that SQLite usually will be safe, but if something does go wrong, well, you're screwed.
- mtdewcmu 12y ago
  >>The comparison with git is very shallow, seemingly based on misunderstandings of how git works. It does sound like they misunderstand (or misrepresent) the way git works. git is very flexible and its capabilities and limitations follow from its distributed nature. If Fossil tries to be git with a smoother interface and more streamlined workflow, it's not surprising that its repos can go bad and lose your data.

ejr 12y ago

Interesting project. I'd love to look at the source and it is available at : http://chiselapp.com/user/johnfound/repository/MiniMagAsm/tree?ci=tip http://chiselapp.com/user/johnfound/repository/MiniMagAsm/tr... but you can visit the above address and download .zip files with the latest version The zip file has eluded me. I may not be looking hard enough for it.

networked 12y ago
You need to log in as "anonymous" to see ZIP and Tarball links.

fsiefken 12y ago

haven't tried it yet but it might be the fastest cms on earth, or perhaps a static markdown cms will be faster.

fencepost 12y ago

Interesting. On the plus side, it's a tiny fast CMS that can likely be used on minimal-ish hardware. On the down side, A) it's x86 assembler while most really minimal hardware these days is ARM-based, and B) it generates all of its HTML on the fly so there's a chance that decently-done caching with generation of static content will beat it, particularly in situations where MiniMagAsm is working through an entire directory structure to generate navigation. I think it's an interesting concept that might actually find some use in the real world if it was ARM assembler, but right now it's an ultralightweight solution that will run primarily on hardware that is unlikely to really need that light weight. It might be interesting to compare its performance to Blosxsom or its other-language derivatives, particularly with those in static generation mode instead of CGI mode.

pekk 12y ago
You are in favor of ARM for whatever reason but that doesn't mean that ARM is the definition of "really minimal".
- fencepost 12y ago
  It's not so much that I favor ARM, just that there seems to be a huge variety of low-power (CPU and energy) systems out there based on the various levels of ARM architecture. Routers, development boards, smartphones, etc. all seem to run on ARM-licensed designs. If there's a similar quantity of x86-based low-power systems I'm not aware of it even in passing. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist, but it probably does mean that x86-based systems of the sort aren't widely internet-connected devices which means that an assembler-based CGI CMS is probably not really relevant for them. Edit: and I should add that by "really minimal" I'm not talking the true low-end of embedded microcontrollers at the Arduino level or below, I'm just talking about network-connectable devices with power consumption measured in single-digit watts.

mtdewcmu 12y ago

I'd like to see a non-minimalistic CMS in assembly language. That would be cool.

johnfound 12y ago

Hi. I am the author of MiniMagAsm. Actually MiniMagAsm is just an proof-of-concept, that can be used for small sites. I know that the performance can be improved by using some optimization tricks, but I simply don't need (for now) it to be faster. :) Also, it is true, that x86 hardware can run much heavier web engines, but think about that the same hardware can run more lightweight engines as MiniMagAsm. Anyway, the future of this project is probably towards using FastCGI or SCGI interfaces and maybe the use of some lightweight database engine - like SQLite. Ah, BTW, http://asm32.hopto.org http://asm32.hopto.org is actually my home desktop computer. :) Recently, the whole project has been moved to a commercial hosting: http://asm32.info http://asm32.info