PHP vs. Java Shindig

[Peter Clijsters <pe...@everett.nl>]

Hi all,
 
I've done a high level comparison of the Java and PHP version of Shindig 1.1
Beta5 for SURFnet in The Netherlands and would like to inform you of the
results. I'm very curious if these results look familiar and what your
thoughts are on this..

I tested the standard install of both versions and did not try to tweak or
modify these default installs in any way.
 
1) Most gadgets are rendered very differently in the testing container of
the PHP and Java versions (the Java version seems to do a better job). It
seems that the PHP version does not render colours and graphics as intended
by the gadget developer. This was seen when the OpenSocial compliance test
gadget tried to display it's results; the results were not colour coded in
the PHP version. Also, the Labpixies tasks gadget is rendered nicer in the
Java version.

2) The default gadget in the Shindig samplecontainer (the SocialHelloWorld
gadget) is not as expected in the PHP version. Only one button with "Say
Hello" can be seen, whereas the Java version shows several HelloWorld
messages from the viewer's friends in different languages.

3) The OpenSocial compliance tests ran against the PHP and Java version were
buggy. It was difficult to form an opinion based on these results (see
http://opensocial-compliance.appspot.com/#shindig-1.1B5-PHP@1274787384,shind
ig-1.1B5-Java@1274781703). Some findings that do stand out:
  a) High priority failures (P0) detected by the tests were checked with a
seperate gadget performing the same functions. The results from these
seperate tests were that there was no problem.
  b) Requesting friends in PHP Shindig only returned the viewer himself, not
the viewer's friends (this was not detected by the compliance test). Java
version performed as expected (three friends returned for viewer john.doe).
This was checked with gadget
http://www.xs4all.nl/~clysters/testgadget/testgadget.xml
This could also explain the problem with the SocialHelloWorld gadget.

-Peter

Re: PHP vs. Java Shindig

[John Hjelmstad <fa...@google.com>]

Hi Peter:

Thanks for the results.

Anecdotally I've seen much more work done on the Java impl of late, so
points 1 and 2 don't surprise me. But in general, the compliance and testing
code in and related to Shindig is in need of work and cleanup. The
compliance gadget in particular would be great to rely on. For lack of
resources myself, I've been hoping that someone could help do a deep dive on
that.

--j

On Sun, Jun 20, 2010 at 6:05 AM, Peter Clijsters <peter.clijsters@everett.nl
> wrote:

>
> Hi all,
>
> I've done a high level comparison of the Java and PHP version of Shindig
> 1.1
> Beta5 for SURFnet in The Netherlands and would like to inform you of the
> results. I'm very curious if these results look familiar and what your
> thoughts are on this..
>
> I tested the standard install of both versions and did not try to tweak or
> modify these default installs in any way.
>
> 1) Most gadgets are rendered very differently in the testing container of
> the PHP and Java versions (the Java version seems to do a better job). It
> seems that the PHP version does not render colours and graphics as intended
> by the gadget developer. This was seen when the OpenSocial compliance test
> gadget tried to display it's results; the results were not colour coded in
> the PHP version. Also, the Labpixies tasks gadget is rendered nicer in the
> Java version.
>
> 2) The default gadget in the Shindig samplecontainer (the SocialHelloWorld
> gadget) is not as expected in the PHP version. Only one button with "Say
> Hello" can be seen, whereas the Java version shows several HelloWorld
> messages from the viewer's friends in different languages.
>
> 3) The OpenSocial compliance tests ran against the PHP and Java version
> were
> buggy. It was difficult to form an opinion based on these results (see
>
> http://opensocial-compliance.appspot.com/#shindig-1.1B5-PHP@1274787384,shind
> ig-1.1B5-Java@1274781703). Some findings that do stand out:
>  a) High priority failures (P0) detected by the tests were checked with a
> seperate gadget performing the same functions. The results from these
> seperate tests were that there was no problem.
>  b) Requesting friends in PHP Shindig only returned the viewer himself, not
> the viewer's friends (this was not detected by the compliance test). Java
> version performed as expected (three friends returned for viewer john.doe).
> This was checked with gadget
> http://www.xs4all.nl/~clysters/testgadget/testgadget.xml
> This could also explain the problem with the SocialHelloWorld gadget.
>
> -Peter
>
>