sparkflow 0.0.1

a flow-based approach to app development using a simple expressive fbp api. Targets: APi Complete ToDo: Add basic level Componenets eg http,websocket,..

SparkFlow

####Version: 0.0.1 ####Description: A flow-based component system in dart with for the development of applications following a better data and control flow approach with a visual approach to coding. Flow Based Programming is an old paradigm giving new life and ease to the development and deployment of ready made applications that provides the flexibility and asynchronouse demands of todays systems. Developed by J. Paul Morrisson <www.jpaulmorrison.com> back in the hay days of computer evolution. Though not eager adopted due to the madness for the conventions at the time,it still has proven it self most vital and has brough new life into how we think and developed.

Other systems exists which bring this old approach back to where it should me,such as:
- NoFlo <noflojs.org> (Javascript implementation of FBP taking the world by storm)
- Goflow (Golang version of FBP)
- Microflo <http://www.jonnor.com/2013/11/microflo-0-2-0-visual-arduino-programming/>

• ... and so much more.

####Features - Component : Provides component level structure - Port: provides a stream approach for communication between components - Socket: The basic connection end-point between two ports - SocketStream: The backend of Socket that provides the streaming api - Network: a graph based system of organizing and connecting components to form a huge application,also used in components for composition - SparkFlow: a top level class that provides a simpler api for instantiating a network and adding components

####Implemented

• Component,Socket, Ports and Network system

####Todo:

• Development of sets of core components (concat,prefixers,loopers,..etc)
• Development of an intermediate script language for easy creation of applications or adopt noflo fbp format
• Development of core web components for rapid development of web applications (client-sided and server-sided)
• Improvement of underline structure and integration with a UI(possible noflo-UI)
• .. and so much more :)

####Example:

Component: A simple combination of a repeater and string prefixer components, every components at creation has4 predefined ports (in,out,option and err),where each provides a stream input for the component

//repeaters take and give what they recieve
var repeater = Repeater.create();
//prefixer takes an input and prefix a value it receives from its option stream to the input value
var prefixer = StringPrefixer.create();

//you can rename ports names
repeater.renamePort('in','suck');
repeater.renamePort('out','spill');

//basic creation of ports,used internally by components
var feeder  = Port.create('feeder');
var reader  = Port.create('writer');
var feeder2  = Port.create('feeder');

//usually ports are to be bounded to other ports but to peek into the stream
//of a port,simply tap into it
reader.tap((n){ print('#log  => $n'); });

//standard method of binding/connecting to ports to each other
feeder.bindPort(repeater.port('suck')); //connect feeder's to reader suck port
repeater.port('spill').bindPort(reader); //connect repeater's spill port to reader


feeder2.bindPort(prefixer.port('in'));
prefixer.port('out').bindPort(reader);

//send data to all connected ports of feeder
feeder.send('alex');
feeder.send('i need salt!');

//In FBP,there is a notion of substreams,which can be anchored by specific tags
// here the feeder is pushing a substream of article tag: 
// <article>1: road</article>
//begins the substream
feeder.beginGroup('<article>');
//data in the substream,can be called countless times to add data into the grouping
feeder.send('1: road');
//ends the substream
feeder.endGroup('</article>');

//without the option port recieving input the prefixer will buffer its streams,
//that is,the option port serves as a means of parsing options to the component or port
//like a value passed to a function call
prefixer.port('option').send('number:');

feeder2.send('1');
feeder2.send('2');

//this can be called over again to change the prefixed value
prefixer.port('option').send('tag:');

feeder2.send('4');

######ThanksGiving
I just wish to show great gratitude to God for helping to get this code to this level,being a long time,experimenting and moving back and forth between JavaScript and Dart towards reaching my goal of an awesome framework or approach to develop consistent web applications,though the road is still long but i can finally say first milestone has been reached and it wont have been possible without God's merciful hands. Let his name be praised. Woot!

SparkFlow.dart (my fbp implementation for dartlang) http://github.com/influx6/sparkflow.dart

Flow based development api finally reach milestone one for dart and now what remains is to bring it up to shape with large sets of components and either a ui or integrate with noflo-ui. Hope the dart community joins in to bring Fbp to dart as an alternative approach to application development.

PS: Gratitude to Henry Bergius (http://bergie.iki.fi/) for the introduction to the approach while i was searching for an approach that really made sense!