Forge frontend tech update

Introduced lately

• Haxe
• tink_core
• Typed reflibs
• tink_state

Haxe

• DevTalks Winter 2020
  • Slides
  • Video
• Code Style Guide
  • FoE-specific adjustments

tink_core

tink_core: CallbackLink

• For all kinds of "cancellable" registrations/operations
• Most often used for callbacks (thus the name)
• Public API: the cancel() method ;-)
• Ensures single invokation
• Create from a function
• Join multiple into a single CallbackLink
• null is a valid value (noop, not NPE)

tink_core: Future

• Represents asynchronous result
• Composability
  • inParallel/inSequence
  • map/flatMap
  • FutureTools.combine
• Can be lazy and suspendable

tink_core: Future

tink_core: Future

tink_core: Outcome

• Represents success/failure outcome
• Explicit and type-safe
• Helper methods included

tink_core: Promise

• Represents asynchronous outcome
• Essentially a Future<Outcome<T,Error>>
• Same API as Future
• + convenience methods for dealing with errors
  • next
  • recover
  • Promise.resolve
  • Promise.reject
  • etc.
• Our own helpers:
  • then
  • PromiseTools.combine

tink_core: Promise

tink_core: Promise

tink_core: Signal

• Generic one-to-many notification primitive
• Listener API separate from trigger API
• Composability
  • map/filter
  • nextTime
• Can be lazy and suspendable

Typed reflibs

• Type-safe asset libraries
• Generated by ATC
  • defined via gunnerfile
  • in sync with asset repo
• More info here

OnStageHandler

• Do actions when object comes to the stage
• Undo actions when it leaves the stage
• GC-friendly, replaces explicit dispose in most cases
• Great for managing external bindings
  • Event/Signal
  • Observable

tink_state: Reactive State Handling

• Observable state primitives
• Automatic derived data updates
• Efficient computations and bindings
• Plays well with tink_core
• ObservableArray/ObservableMap

tink_state: The Idea

tink_state: The Idea

tink_state: Basics

tink_state: binding

• Synchronously calls handler for the first time
• On-change binding invokations are batched
  • bindings are invoked once per frame
  • bindings are only invoked if the value actually changes
• Configurable
  • custom comparators
  • direct invokation instead of batching

tink_state: auto-observable

• Create observables from a compute function
• Automatically tracks "parent" observables
• Invalidates when parents change
• Recomputes on the next access
  • and caches the result until next invalidation

tink_state: Predicted/Promised

Convenience tools for observing Future/Promise results