MochaBlox

The above demo shows the key advantage that MochaBlox brings to the web applications developed by LogicBlox. By avoiding server communication, the particles in the above simulation can be updated at a full monitor refresh rate. Furthermore, responses to to the horizontal slider and to the "Run/Pause" button are instantaneous.

Some notable aspects of this project:

• I developed a compiler from the company programming language to JavaScript. The compiler supports full language semantics, including view maintenance and Statelog-style transactions.
• The compiler could compile the entirety of a typical LogicBlox web application in about one second.
• I designed a "ports" extension to the company Datalog dialect. Ports bridge the gap between two different computational models: the transactional, state-free semantics of Datalog, and the event-loop model supported by web browsers.
• I developed a novel debugging technique, based on source maps, so that developers could single-step their Datalog code within a web browser. The technique is described in Source Maps for Non-traditional Source Code.
• I integrated the compiler with the company UI framework, so that developers could describe their UI layout using a YAML file. Developers could write the name of a MochaBlox port as an attribute of a UI control such as a text field, and anything typed into the text field would be forwarded to the designated MochaBlox port.

Some files used in the above demo:

• particles.logic: Datalog code for the particle simulation.
• out.js: JavaScript output for the above code. There is a JavaScript comment in the file for each Datalog rule, followed by the compiled version of that rule.

Lex Spoon