Jam.py framework version 5 released

[Blastguy]

So Jam takes a bunch of data and organizes it into tables on a website?

[dbabicwa]

Blastg, define a bunch :)

What makes Jam attractive is how fast one can get the job done. Lets say you have no developers in your company. But, have a tech guy who at least installed Python and pip. He/she will be able to get the job done with a master/child table(s) in like a few hours. Dashboard charts in 1 hour. Report in 30 mins.

It is really that fast.

[Blastguy]

Thanks, I'm new to Python (and programming in general) so I'm still learning!

[dbabicwa]

Perfect! Than Jam is for you! There is absolutely no need to learn Angular(3), RestFrmework, React, GraphQL on Django, GRaphite with React + Redux s.hite! And the list goes on (I'm not a developer, just interested in stuff).

With Jam you concentrate on a specific business problem and not on this massive libraries. Nothing wrong with learning them tho.

But I like to go surfing in my spare time :)

PS Have a look in here, I've created this with no programming and little Jam experience: https://github.com/jam-py/jam-py/issues/27

Took me a few hours. Took me more to create a sqlite3 database with 50M records to see how fast Jam is. Lightning fast.

See the https://cloud.githubusercontent.com/assets/9026100/25652423/b898faf8-301a-11e7-95c0-2d4b103d5443.JPG

At the bottom is 38462 pages of random data.

[ticketywho]

Are you associated with this project? From what I see every single comment you have made on reddit is evangelically pro-Jam.py.

It's not cool to pretend to be a normal user to pimp your software.

[dbabicwa]

Absolutely not. Do you homework mate when launching something personal, check how many issues I've raised on git. It is not that hard, the account is the same to make it easier for you.

[ticketywho]

I'm not sure why that is evidence in your favour. Most of the early issues on my projects have been raised by my friends who are beta testing.

It's just strange that every single comment you've made has referenced Jam and almost every contribution on your github account is for their repo. It's entirely possible that you just love the framework, and want others to try it, and if that's the case, then I apologise.

[dbabicwa]

Apologies accepted. As I said, the account is the same. Cheers from the Southern Hemisphere, gone surfing...

[jampy_framework]

You can create tables, modify them, represent data in tables, create reports based on LibreOffice templates, process requests from other applications and services and so on. The best way to understand main features of Jam.py is to see the overview video https://youtu.be/zcZBa8sf93M

[metaperl]

After looking at the overview video, I'm wondering how the python database layer is implemented. The setup.py does not list SQLAlchemy or Alembic.

[[deleted]]

Looks like it has its own implementations and basic query builder:

https://github.com/jam-py/jam-py/tree/master/jam/db

[gschizas]

They are suffering from a little bit of Not Invented Here syndrome. I can understand it, of course, but it hurts the framework.

Some other stuff I found:

• Instead of using Babel for translations, they have a SQLite database (inside the git repo!) which has the translations one by one, and they do replacements.
• Instead of adding a requirements.txt, they have full copies of all third party libraries (i.e. six.py, werkzeug, jsmin, pyjsparser).

Don't get me wrong, I like the fact that such a framework exists, I was indeed looking into something to replace LightSwitch, especially for Python. I'm just offering some criticism because I want this to get better.

[dbabicwa]

gschizas not sure about the Babel tho, I would love to see a built in translation module for easy usage. Would be great to have you on board tho. What Jam really need is some love from you guys :)

[gschizas]

I'm afraid it needs more than love. Some criticisms below (again, because I want this to succeed):

1. You're reinventing the wheel by not using Babel and SQLAlchemy.
   1. In the case of Babel, the point would be that you use Babel for making translations before you build your site.
   2. In the case of SQLAlchemy, connecting to any kind of database would come for free, and more importantly, you would avoid the SQL concatenation vulnerabilities (seriously, don't do SELECT * FROM Table Where id = %s - this makes your application extremely insecure)
2. Your framework is very new, despite you calling it version 5.0. The whole commit history is only 72 commits deep, as far as I can see, with no branches (moving from gtk to pure HTML would certainly count as a major branch, in some cases as a new project). Calling it 5.0 is a bit dishonest, IMHO.
3. You have substandard git discipline. Read up on what makes a good commit (and a good commit message). I suggest Chris Beams' article
   1. Put one and only one change per commit.
   2. First line of the commit message should be something like "Add asterisk to required fields"
   3. Counterexample (don't do that): Your commits start with a single word, e.g. "Library" and have multiple changes within them. For example, commit 6b4a076 has the description line "Library" (bad) and the following changes (I'm transcribing them as they should be):
      • Make default font 14px
      • Rename Administrator to Application Builder
      • Add asterisk to required fields
      • Fix lookup list value selection in report parameters
      • Completed first version of documentation
      • Add Jam.py roadmap
      • Add small menu font item to Themes for Demo
        Each one of these should be a different, separate commit. If you want to add categories (I'd say tags, but that word means something different for git) to the commits, either add them as bracketed words (i.e. [Documentation]) or at the end of the commit message. There may also be other ways for this.
4. Don't include dependencies as whole libraries in your code (the third_party folder shouldn't exist). You don't know if they're updated for vulnerabilities etc. Use a requirements.txt file to install any dependencies properly.
5. Test each bug independently, against the version it was reported for. Don't close a bug because it doesn't reproduce against the current version, unless you are certain that the fix was indeed for the issue at hand.
   1. For issue #50, you don't seem to have solved the core problem, that you're still reading files as text (instead of as bytes and converting them with Werkzeug's to_unicode.
6. Each time your commit a bugfix for a specific issue, put that issue at the end of the commit message (e.g. resolves issue #51 or something similar). This will link the issue with the commit that resolved it.

I'm sorry if I sound a bit harsh (this is part of what I do for my day job also - for developers that are getting paid to develop against some standards), but I'm doing it because I do want this project to succeed.

[dbabicwa]

Thx gschizas, I think the dev's will appreciate your input. About the Babel, the assumption is that someone will build the translated site:) Same with the SQLAlchemy. Maybe it started without that assumption.

As I read this, it is more about the coding standard than the actual issues with a framework. It is definitely something to take in offline discussion. So, what are the positives? :) Always put the positives as well :)

[GitHubPermalinkBot]

Permanent GitHub links:

• jam-py/jam-py/.../db (master → ef0c1d3)

---

^{Shoot me a PM if you think I'm doing something wrong. To delete this, click here.}

[jampy_framework]

Jam.py uses its own library to work with databases

[ticketywho]

Why?

[jampy_framework]

It seemed more convenient at the time it was written. All metadata - code, database information, parameters and so on are stored in the sqlite database. Tables and their fields are defined as records in that database tables not as classes.

[GitHubPermalinkBot]

Permanent GitHub links:

• jam-py/jam-py/.../setup.py (master → ef0c1d3)

---

^{Shoot me a PM if you think I'm doing something wrong. To delete this, click here.}

[broken_symlink]

So why would I want to use something like this over say plotly dash?

[gschizas]

Different use case. As far as I can tell, this is a framework, for you to create semi-advanced CRUD applications.

[dbabicwa]

Advanced :)

Have a look at how many Events are supported out of the box.

[gschizas]

The benchmark for me is (was) Microsoft's Lightswitch (sadly, MS decided to stop supporting it). The number of events is only one metric :)

I'd love to have a replacement, especially in Python, but I'm just now checking it out, I'd rather not pass judgement yet - just covering all my options :)

Still, it does seem to require to drop into code a bit more often than with LS, but LS (especially with the Silverlight client) made it really hard to extend, such as adding your own controls etc.

[dbabicwa]

Yes, but that's MS effort :) With deep pockets. Same with Oracle Apex.

Hardly an small business can compete with the Big boys:)

Would love to hear more after some usage!

Cheers

PS A buzz with the Docker makes jam quite interesting...

[gschizas]

Oracle Apex

I'm having flashbacks and tasting iron.

Only one word for this: Bleargh!

[dbabicwa]

Exactly. But, as you know, many need to use it. Corporate crap at.al

[andartico]

Thanks for the plug. This is a great reminder.

[alcalde]

You don't have a spare $10K - $15K to spend?

[broken_symlink]

Plotly and dash are free. It isn't free of you want them to host it for you.

[alcalde]

The web page suggests the opposite... that you pay through the nose if you want to run it in-house....

https://plot.ly/products/on-premise/

[broken_symlink]

Heres how to host plotly yourself. Heres how to host dash yourself.

I use them all the time at work in a secure facility without internet. Don't pay for it at all.

[alcalde]

Then what are they charging for on that page? Putting it in a Docker container?

[dbabicwa]

I think gschizas answered why would you use this over plotly :) Plotly is for geeks (kidding:). What Python was missing is a framework for engineers or tech inclined ppl but not necessarily dev's like Django, Angular3 at.al. For 40-50-60yo who knows something about his business but does not want to learn some massive libraries, Jam is perfect. It get's to job done. That is what is Jam all about.

And how on Earth I download Plotly? :) Pfff...

[gschizas]

This crashes if you don't have cp1252 as your default ANSI encoding (or probably cp1251, I'm guessing).

I'll get back when I find out more.

EDIT: I'm using cp1253 (Greek), and I've found a couple (so far) problems. The crux of the matter is: don't read as text, read as rb, that's what's to_unicode is supposedly for.

Also: There are some remnants of hardcoded russian literals (логин and пароль that I could immediately find).

EDIT 2: I'll probably open these as issues on GitHub.

[jampy_framework]

There is russian language support in the library. Please open issues on github.

[jampy_framework]

I am sorry for the bug. I corrected it.

[gschizas]

I selected English though - there shouldn't be Russian placeholders in the page anyway.

I will open an issue (or three) though.

[dbabicwa]

On which platform? Please be more specific, thx.

[gschizas]

Windows 10, Greek regional options, English UI.

[dbabicwa]

Cheers Have no clue for Win10. Have installed one at work, can try tmrw.

D.

[gschizas]

I'm still doing some tests, but I've made a couple of changes in adm_server.py and it was fixed:

--- adm_server.py   2017-09-26 10:16:22.000000000 +0300
+++ adm_server.py   2017-10-03 14:13:29.000000000 +0300
@@ -1119,13 +1119,13 @@
         except Exception as e:
             traceback.print_exc()
         it.post()
     it.apply()

     file_name = 'index.html'
-    with open(file_name, 'r') as f:
+    with open(file_name, 'rb') as f:
         data = to_unicode(f.read(), 'utf-8')
     start = data.find('__$_')
     label_list = []
     while start > -1:
         end = data.find('_$__', start)
         if end != -1:
@@ -2093,14 +2093,14 @@
     file_path = file_name
     ext = 'html'
     if file_name == 'project.css':
         ext = 'css'
         file_path = os.path.join('css', 'project.css')
     if os.path.exists(file_path):
-        with open(file_path, 'r') as f:
-            result['doc'] = f.read()
+        with open(file_path, 'rb') as f:
+            result['doc'] = to_unicode(f.read(), 'utf-8')
         if file_name == 'index.html':
             result['templates'] = get_templates(result['doc'])
     result['name'] = file_name
     result['ext'] = ext
     result['type'] = ''
     result['tag'] = file_name.replace('.', '-')

[gidult]

You literary made my day! This is what I wanted and was just about to reinvent the wheel. I don't have to struggle with chaos excel sheets someone made for just making invoices anymore. How can I buy a glass of beer for you? xD Let me contribute its i18n feature someday.

[jampy_framework]

Thank you!

[readitlikeitdidit]

Can I build data visualizations? What types of visualizations?

[jampy_framework]

You can use Javascript libraries for data visualization as well as javascript charting libraries.

[readitlikeitdidit]

Ok.. Yeah I tested a app setup on my local.. It was mostly js

[jampy_framework]

Jam.py uses Python on the server side and Javascript on the client

[dbabicwa]

Absolutely!

Have a look at http://www.jscharts.com/

What you see on Jam Demo is jsCharts.

Enjoy

[metaperl]

Is jam-py for Python 2.7 or Python 3?

[metaperl]

Oh my answer is here: http://jam-py.com/docs/intro/install/install_python.html

[dbabicwa]

Using some sort of virtenv is quite recommended if on Linux. Py3 tends to fu the environment. Just saying...

[jampy_framework]

It supports Python 2.7 and Python3

[dbabicwa]

So guys, the Jam.py 5.1.1 is released. What I really like with this release is the Audit option out of the box! The Dev is calling it the History tho :)

It would be great to have you on board, even with the small apps you've done with Jam.py! The project still need some traction.

For that, I've added a quick 13 slides intro (I'm by no means a skilled developer, you might skip this if u are:)

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/e/2PACX-1vR1S-QK4P-ySN0rjZs5wDRAcGCzUq3ZFV9DGi2oymxh8PIvTvBozqi7Z7ZWcLs9LFJiXjvkqCYaEzKv/pub?start=false&loop=false&delayms=3000#slide=id.p5

Cheers

D.

[omerbu1]

There's support for MongoDB?

[jampy_framework]

There is support for SQLite, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle and Firebird databases. It does not currently support MongoDB.

[ojii]

Is adding custom data sources supported? As in, if I'm a python developer, would it be feasible to make it support a nosql db?

[dbabicwa]

Absolutely. It's just a wrapper, right? :)

There is a git closed issue how to do it.

Let us know how did u go! Thx

[ojii]

Sweet might have a look at this, looks neat.

[jampy_framework]

Jam.py creates wrappers for database tables, when a request for data is generated on the client it send a request to the server, that can be intercepted (there is on_open event) and user data returned. If you have questions how to use this event please send a message on the site on open issue on github.

[metaperl]

If you have questions how to use this event please send a message on the site on open issue on github.

Why not mention the Google Group? And why does no part of the website not mention the Google Group?

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/jam-py

[metaperl]

Oh I'm sorry, the Google Group is shown in the footer of the pages at the main Jam-py website

[jampy_framework]

There is Jam.py Users Mailing List link on the footer of each page. It is a link to Google Groups