AllAccepted answers
Guillaume Rongier · Dec 20, 2022

Just to be clear, the remove of the private web server is just for IRIS and IRIS for Health. IRIS and IRIS for Health community edition still has the private web server.

Then, the question is, what is the cost of this decision for end-developers like most of here.

I would say not that much as you think. The main raison is that most of the developer use the community edition. And the community edition still has the private web server. Then if you have an preinstalled IRIS, you will keep the private server.

The main cost is for the new developer that don't have an preinstalled IRIS and that don't want to use the community edition. I agree that installing a web server is not that easy if you sick on windows. But it is not that hard if you are on Linux or Mac.

For windows developers, may be we can provide simple installer that install a web server and configure it for IRIS.

Now, if we take a step back on the ease of use. I think, this decision is a good one, because it's the first major step of breaking down the monolith. From this point, we can start to make the product more modular. And of course, there is a lot of work to do.

I agree with you that we must improve our client libraries and drivers. Put them in direct distribution, make them more easy to use and with modern features.

Guillaume Rongier · Dec 19, 2022

This post has been edited to make use of the IRIS Embedded Python Wrapper : https://github.com/grongierisc/iris-embedded-python-wrapper.

The old version :

alias irisvenv="/opt/intersystems/iris/bin/irispython -m venv .venv; rm .venv/bin/python3; ln -s /opt/intersystems/iris/bin/irispython .venv/bin/python3; source .venv/bin/activate;"

Was in fact not working, because of the irispython interpretor that doesn't support venv yet.

To make embedded python works with venv, please use :

alias irisvenv="python3 -m venv .venv; source .venv/bin/activate; pip install https://github.com/grongierisc/iris-embedded-python-wrapper/releases/download/v0.0.1/iris-0.0.1-py3-none-any.whl"

and make sure that the environment variable named IRISINSTALLDIR is pointing to the InterSystems IRIS installation directory.

export IRISINSTALLDIR=/opt/iris
Guillaume Rongier · Dec 16, 2022

Major update :

Now this module is available on Pypi:

Install with PyPI

pip3 install iris-pex-embedded-python

Import the ObjectScript classes, open an embedded python shell and run :

from grongier.pex import Utils
Utils.setup()

Known issues

If the module is not updated, make sure to remove the old version :

pip3 uninstall iris-pex-embedded-python

or manually remove the grongier folder in <iris_installation>/lib/python/

or force the installation with pip :

pip3 install --upgrade iris-pex-embedded-python --target <iris_installation>/lib/python/
Guillaume Rongier · Oct 21, 2022

Hi,

You need to fill in some environment variables that allow you to authenticate yourself and therefore connect.

The variables are :

IRISUSERNAME
IRISPASSWORD
IRISNAMESPACE

In a docker file for example :

# environment variables for embedded python
ENV IRISUSERNAME "SuperUser"
ENV IRISPASSWORD "SYS"
ENV IRISNAMESPACE "IRISAPP"

In a shell :

export IRISUSERNAME=SuperUser
export IRISPASSWORD=SYS
export IRISNAMESPACE=IRISAPP
Guillaume Rongier · Oct 9, 2022

query is the way to go :

import iris

g = iris.gref("^MyGlobal")

# Insert some data
g[1] = "my first line"
g[2] = "my second line"
g[1,"a"] = "my first line with a key"
g[1,"b"] = "my first line with a key"
g[2,"a"] = "my second line with a key"
g[2,"b"] = "my second line with a key"
g[3,"a",1] = "my third line with a key and a subkey"

for (key, value) in g.query():
    print(f"{key} -> {value}")

result :

['1'] -> my first line
['1', 'a'] -> my first line with a key
['1', 'b'] -> my first line with a key
['2'] -> my second line
['2', 'a'] -> my second line with a key
['2', 'b'] -> my second line with a key
['3'] -> None
['3', 'a'] -> None
['3', 'a', '1'] -> my third line with a key and a subkey
Guillaume Rongier · Oct 3, 2022

I'm personally, trying to help with these issues. Even for ObjectScript, I managed to upgrade the developer's experience with modern IDE VSCode (So, the young developers who know what a modern development process should look like, would not be so shocked by so outdated Studio). Help with using Docker in the development process, package managers, and continuous integration, all with ObjectScript, and even static syntax analyzer. But I want that all the new projects would not use ObjectScript at all, to help with it, I have built Django driver to IRIS. I want to see IRIS support in as many programming languages as possible, and as many libraries and frameworks as possible. So, the developers would not have any issues in switching jobs, they have to use their knowledge which could be applicable anywhere. Want to build an application that uses SQL, that's ok, here is the driver, connect it and use it, as you would do it with another relational database.  NoSQL, ORM, or something else, is not an issue as well. But it's still too far to this point.  

I am so aligned with what you are saying.
IRIS is a database first (and with lots of assets : MultiModel, Speed, Analytics, Transactional, Sharding and so on).
The code when possible should be next to the database, not in the database. And we need to make the use of IRIS simple and elegant on other frameworks.
Your work on n8n, node red, VsCode, django are important for the community.
Thanks again for all these contributions and keep going you are in the right direction!

Guillaume Rongier · Sep 30, 2022

Hi André,

I have the same impression in France, we also have difficulties to find people who know the ObjectScript language.


To answer this problem, there is the Embedded Python solution which is almost 100% compatible with ObjectScript.
From my point of view, this is one of the answers to this problem.


Moreover, if like us in France, many projects are done with IRIS Interopreabilty (a.k.a Ensemble), I can advise you to use this ZPM module which offers a 100% Python experience and a strong compatibility with all existing projects.


This way, newcomers to InterSystems technologies can quickly get up to speed while ensuring a smooth transition between the "old guard" and the new generation.