Nisse is a C++ library that simplifies the creation of C++ web-based applications. Nisse provides a framework for handling incoming requests and executing user-defined code asynchronously. To achieve this, Nisse creates managed socket connections that can be utilized by user code and will automatically suspend execution of user code and RE-USES the thread if the user code would block during a read/write operation on a connection, thus offering easily accessible asynchronous functionality.
The concept is to make it simple for beginner engineers to write normal synchronous-looking C++ code that is easy to reason about but automatically provides asynchronous processing that is inherently needed for web-based applications to function efficiently.
I admire the Javascript/NodeJS model that makes it (relatively) easy for beginners to quickly and intuitively build simple working web-based applications. The ability to quickly create and deploy simple web apps is a great teaching platform that has allowed easy experimentation by beginners and thus provides them with a platform to learn new skills that are easy to demonstrate to friends (The “Look what I have built” word of the month).
In comparison, building even simple web-based apps in C++ is nontrivial and not suitable for teaching. I doubt it will ever be as simple to create production web apps in C++, but I hope that Nisse can help beginners quickly throw together a rapid prototype of a web-based application and shout out to their friends, "Look what I have built; come check it out …".
Nisse is built on some standard libraries (libEvent, Boost CoRoutine2) that do the heavy lifting. Nisse wires them together in a simple-to-use framework. Boost-CoRoutines provide cooperative multitasking, allowing user code to be suspended when a core/thread is blocked waiting on IO, and libEvent provides the dispatch loop that is keyed on IO operations, allowing user code to be rescheduled when the operation can be resumed.
I will create a series of posts explaining how Nisse works while providing a mini tutorial on C++ coding and web applications as I go. Once this initial series is complete, I will use Nisse as a platform to build little applications that demonstrate C++ coding and provide lessons in modern C++ techniques that are fun and easy to understand for beginners.
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