Introducing AmiNation

AmiNation is a full-featured Python web application framework and is a product of orangoolabs.com. AmiNation is the driving force behind the Skeletonz content management system written in Python. Although AmiNation is not a formal Python package, it isn't at package at all let alone a formal one, it is a collection of smaller projects that form a coherent whole. These component projects that make the AmiNation web framework are actually independent of one another. So, in a way, it makes the coupling of projects that decide to employ AmiNation Much smaller. If, for instance, there was no longer a need for the AmiDb component, it could safely be removed without affecting the AmiFormat component. The AmiNation web framework provides a good solution for developers looking to implement a Python component-based web architecture. There are three components that make up the AmiNation framework. The AJS component is a lightweight javascript library. The AmiFormat component is an HTML formatter that provides a wiki-like syntax and produces HTML output for the web. Finally, AmiDb is a small database wrapper that sits on top of several other Python database libraries.

The AJS javascript library is very lightweight. Having lightweight javascript libraries is a very important requirement given the likelihood of the library being retrieved several times in the same day by the same user. The AJS library is lighter, that is, smaller in size, than most commonly used javascript libraries today such as jQuery. The AJS javascript library provides functionality for easily creating DOM elements on the fly. This dynamic DOM creation is an important feature of any modern day javascript library as is the requirement of making remote, ajax-style requests, which the AJS library also supports. The DOM creation functions provided by the library are easy to use because they are named after the element the developer wants to create. For instance, SPAN(). DOM elements often need to be created in response to some GUI event or in response to a remote request response. Often, DOM elements will need to be queried. For instance, a developer may implement a query that checks the which classes a certain set of DOM elements contain. Although this is supported by the AJS javascript library, the syntax can be awkward at times. Similar to the way jQuery syntax can grow to be over-complicated if not used with caution.

The AmiFormat component of the AmiNation web framework can be though of as a formatting engine. It provides a formatHTML() method that can be invoked on formatter instances. This method will take a string as a parameter and replace any custom syntax it finds in the string with HTML formatted for the web. It is trivial for developers to add new syntax to the formatter. It mostly involves creating a new class with some parameter validation and rendering functionality. This class is then registered with the formatter instance. The syntax used in the string passed to the formatter follows a square bracket element style. Inside these square brackets, any number of named parameters can be passed to the element. It is mostly a matter of the element supporting the parameter by checking for it and using it when rendering the template. The square bracket style of element syntax is great when using two brackets. However, this syntax can look rather clumsy when using four brackets while closing the second pair.

The AmiDb component is a simple database wrapper. It sits on top of SQLAlchemy and other Python database libraries. The main reason for the AmiDb component is to offer more flexibility than what traditional ORM technology offers when executing complex database queries. There are a limited number of functions in this component that allow developers less restrictive functionality. SQLAlchemy is actively maintained whereas AmiDb is not. In fact, the AmiNation project as a whole is not actively maintained. Hopefully, this trend is reversed because there is a lot of useful design here that could help simplify many Python web application projects that currently use much more than what is needed in terms of library functionality. If nothing else, the AmiNation will serve as an exemplary Python project with outstanding design elements hidden within.