django-hypergen 0.9

Live view for django and templates in pure python

Why hypergen?

Say bye bye to:

• frontend

• javascript

• mangling making data ready for serialization

• serialization/deserialization

• template language

• webpack/NPM/parcel/gulp/redux/react/etc/etc/etc

And hello to:

• automatic liveview features

• composable pure python templates

• easy dataformat to perform custom frontend actions

• automatic serialization/deserialization from backend->frontend and frontend->backend

Why not Hypergen?

• every frontend change on the frontend requires a call to the server

• python templating is not for everyone. Using Django templates is possible but not as polished yet

Value Proposition

The basic form that makes Hypergen great (for us) is exemplified in this simple counter:

from hypergen.core import *
from hypergen.core import callback as cb
from hypergen.contrib import hypergen_view, hypergen_callback, NO_PERM_REQUIRED

from django.templatetags.static import static

@hypergen_view(perm=NO_PERM_REQUIRED)
def counter(request):
    doctype()
    with html():
        with head():
            script(src=static("hypergen/hypergen.min.js"))
        with body(id_="body"):
            template(1)

@hypergen_callback(perm=NO_PERM_REQUIRED, target_id="body")
def increment(request, n):
    template(n + 1)

def template(n):
    label("Current value: ")
    input_(id_="n", type_="number", value=n)
    button("Increment", id_="increment", onclick=cb(increment, n))

Our journal to Hypergen

The journey leading up to building hypergen has been 15 years of experimenting with all the different methodologies of building websites for advanced business applications. It went something like this:

• Custom non-frameworky PHP: Totally great cowboy style. Everything is a already a template.

• Drupal obession: Why am I programming an UI for us programmers to build the site when we could just program the site? Try to think about the problem on your own before following current “best practices”. Use a framework that is actually a framework.

• Switch to Django. Wow there is actually all the features I need, and great docs too. Ahh python makes sense. Django forms and the request/response cycle is great. Python is not a template language, hmm i guess djangos templates are ok.

• Frontend level1: We need dynamic features, use the jQuery language to sprinkle behaviour where needed. State management is hard. Disconnect between server and client.

• Frontend level2: Oh noohs the jQuery is unmanageable. Lets use handlebars templates, a persistent state and render everything on each state change. Rerendering is sluggish for large pages.

• Frontend level3: Please save us React. State management is finally kind of nice. Everything is a template. Wow building duplicate functionality on the server and the client is annoying. A lot of the code is just about shuffling data between the server and the client. I miss python and all the great stuff in Django.

• Why can’t I just write my html in python and have frontend events call python functions? Actually I can, enter Hypergen :)

Running the examples

git clone [e-mail]:runekaagaard/django-hypergen.git
cd django-hypergen/
virtualenv -p python3.9 venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt
pip install -r examples/requirements.txt
cd examples
python manage.py migrate
python manage.py runserver
# open http://127.0.0.1:8000 in your browser

Developing

Backend

1. Format all python code with yapf

2. Run all tests with: pytest –tb=native -x -vvvv test_all.py

Frontend

sudo yarn global add parcel-bundler
# or
sudo npm install -g parcel-bundler
cd hypergen/static/hypergen
parcel watch -o hypergen.min.js -d . hypergen.js

Profiling

rm -f /tmp/hypergen.profile && python -m cProfile -o /tmp/hypergen.profile manage.py runserver 127.0.0.1:8002
echo -e 'sort tottime\nstats' | python3 -m pstats /tmp/hypergen.profile | less
# or
pyprof2calltree -i /tmp/hypergen.profile -k

#
rm -f /tmp/hypergen.profile && python -m cProfile -o /tmp/hypergen.profile manage.py inputs_profile && \
    echo -e 'sort tottime\nstats' | python3 -m pstats /tmp/hypergen.profile | less