So, what is UniT exactly?
A unit has two facets:
- A unit is a text template. A text template is
mainly a text - any text or text format, such as
HTML or XML. Such a text template contains
special tags that dynamically insert nice
content in the right place or start complex actions.
- Experts know that there is no way to create
such a flexible technology, which can do all of these things
without a programming language. UniT is also a
very small, easy, Java-like programming language
that allows loops, conditionals (if-then-else),
and full access to Java. But UniT is easier than
existing programming languages because
complicated, unnecessary things such as type, class-,
field-, and method declarations are simply skipped.
A unit is a mixture of a text and a computer program.
The following image gives you an overview.
What can you do with the programming language part?
In principle, most features are very similar to those
features that are allowed within Java methods. This
means that everything you can do in Java methods, you can do in UniT,
too. You can:
- do loops,
- execute different parts depending on any logic/Boolean
condition expression (if-then-else),
- create any Java object,
- declare references to any Java object (variables/identifiers),
- access any object and class (fields and methods),
- calculate any expression, and
- handle errors.
Of course, you can also access data sources like files and
databases, or even execute a graphical user interface. A
UniT program could call any Java program and vice versa.
And how is it different to Java?
UniT is exclusively designed to easily generate text in
any format. UniT and Java have distinct
purposes and it was not the intention to allow complex
program logic within UniT by declaring types and members.
It is not needed within UniT. If you need to execute
complex logic within UniT, then you can call a Java program (written
by a Java programming expert). If you need to generate
text within Java, then you can call a UniT program.
Other differences are that
- UniT realizes dynamic type checking, and therefore no type casting is needed,
- there is no switch-statement,
- there are no import directives,
therefore if you need to name a class, you must qualify
it totally, exactly as in Java, and
- UniT only knows the
primitive types boolean and int. There is no byte, short, long,
char, float and double. But nevertheless, all constructors and methods
can be executed, even those that expect parameters of a primitive type.
Simply use instances of the classes Byte, Short, Long, Character,
Float and Double to pass parameters of the corresponding primitive type.
Is UniT a mature technology?
The implementation of UniT has been tested extensively.
The repeatable regression test should execute nearly every statement.
Did you find a bug? Contact me (see below).
Do you have examples?
Yes! This website is generated with UniT!
You'll find it within the download file that contains
an example directory. Just read the readme.txt and
open the files ending with .unit with a text editor.
Do you have more examples, e.g. RTF?
Not, yet. Do you have any? I would like to collect and
publish some more.
I would like to do html-forms with UniT?
Well, you can generate html-forms with UniT, even embedded within servlets,
but you/a programming expert should do the business logic
with java, not with UniT-templates!
UniT is no "visual tool", yet ;-)
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