I’m proud to announce that DAssistA finally get rolled out with proof-of-concept version which includes the following features:
- shell command line execution via nekovm
- restful-like execution via nekovm (or mod_neko)
- compile itself & any other haxe/neko based application or module
- release itself & any other project involving only (copy, compile) actions.
- compile php based application or module
- Several simple proxy tools (Copy, Cmd, Haxe, Dir, Git, WGet)
- Couple of pdml parsers (ActionPDML & MetadataPdml) module
- Generic Pdml Parser module
From the above here is a simple usage tutorial:
How to install dassista
1. Install haxe
2. Download the following repo_0.2 zip
3. Unzip to an empty folder (eg. D:\pd-repo\)
that’s all 
How to compile dassista
1. Fire-up a console (usually in windows this is Start->Run->type cmd.exe and hit enter)
2. Navigate to the repo folder where dassista repo had been unzipted (eg. D:\pd-repo\)
3. Type “parse.bat haxe.org.dassista._pdml.compile” , and watch how DAssistA’s modules are been compiled.
How to export dassista as repo
1. Fire-up console pointing at the repo folder (eg. D:\pd-repo)
2. Type “parse.bat haxe.org.dassista._pdml.export-as-repo“, and watch how current DAssistA repository is been exported into single zip ready to be deployed
How to compile/export to php haxe written web implementation
1. Create an empty directory under dassista repo (eg. D:\pd-repo\php\org\test\)
2. Put php-compile as D:\pd-repo\php\org\test\_pdml\compile.pdml
3. Put Index as D:\pd-repo\php\org\test\Index.hx
3. Type in shell@pd-repo “parse.bat php.org.test._pdmls.compile“
As things go – soon or later DAssista will have its own full development compile – release process using itself. Where currently it releases itself as repository.
There are still a lot to be done (including cross-platform modules implementation), but finally a good proof-of-concept is ready. Here is how it works(for now):
DAssista runs under neko virtual machine. It does support a standard neko modules loading, where all action modules in dassista are compile – scriptable. This means that if you need additional action module you need to write it down in haxe & compile as neko module.
Because DAssista should work for anybody and do everything it is command based (for now, later GUI will be pushed in front) where there are two scripts responsible for command execution:
– compiler.bat %* which actually compiles DAssista’s compiler & compiles any target given as command arg. Target may be either single DAssista action module or directory path. The compiler understands repository based paths & file system onces.
- parser.bat %* which actually is used to parse pdml files passed as command arg.
And here are simple use cases:
c:\pd-repo> compile.bat haxe.org.dassista.module.*
will compile all *.hx found files to neko bytecode modules *.n
c:\pd-repo> parser.bat haxe.org.dasssista.release-repo
will parse & execute c:\pd-repo\haxe\org\dassista\release-repo.pdml , which actually will do a release of dassista in C:\pd-repo\releases\org\dassista\
More to be done including git clone-overlap integration.
Requirements:
Windows OS
installed haXe (with nekovm) & PATH env variable pointing to haxe.exe & neko.exe
Future versions will also contain self-download-install of git & its integrations.
Now for the fun here is the released repo v0.1
As I’ve understood the power of having one abstract language based on multiple platforms like php, flash/flex, nekovm in one place, is more than great. haXe (bow) is more than great & powerful implementation, but still limited in some aspects like having java support. Also it is great to see that FlashDevelop had evolved a lot, therefore it now has full-featured haXe support (bow^2).
Therefore PDM becomes DAssistant 
It’s main focus still remains the same, but with haxe it becomes even more extendable… May be this picture would remove some of the clouds around the my initial concept (comments are well appreciated ;) )
While still on the `wave` of project development here are so far gathered notes during keeping it out of the way @ work:
* pdm can be enough scalable to support projects never intended to be build/deployed with pdm.
* all pdm related files can be in ‘.pdml’ folder, and kept out of sight until one needs them
* all pdm files should be already populated with commented structure, so one should not never need to open documentation according (this can be achieved by very efficient default pdml templating & pdm cli/service implementation)
* multiple actions upon project can be stored in separate files like: More→