Dear Free Software fans,
It is not without emotion that I come to announce to you today the availability as Free Software of some code we have been developing - and extensively using - here at Que Choisir.
I'm posting here under the announcement we came up with and will keep it otherwise short.
If you know of any website that would fancy publishing this kind of news, let me hear it :)
Cheers, Nico
= Announcement =
EvQueue is a free and open source task scheduler and queueing engine. It handles the planning of simple tasks but also that of workflows, chaining basic pieces of code to more complex endeavours. The description of how tasks are linked together is based on XML and XPath, making workflow structure rely on standard and well-known technologies.
EvQueue's queueing engine is written in C++ and is event-driven, making it leightweight and very fast. The web interface is written in PHP. It allows monitoring of running tasks and workflows, new workflows creation (including a GUI mode), and tasks scheduling.
Alongside the web interface, evQueue exposes a network API allowing remote control (launch workflows, monitor tasks...). Execution of heavy tasks is indeed a recurring issue in web systems, where clients behave in an asynchronous fashion. Using evQueue solves this issue by offering a simple follow-up system through AJAX calls on the client side, and an excellent visibility for system administrators backstage.
Documentation on how to install and use evQueue, as well as workflow examples, are available on the evQueue website.
EvQueue is being developped and maintained by the IT department of French consumer-protection NGO /UFC-Que Choisir/. It is published under a Free Software license since March 2015. It has been used in a production environment by the organisation's IT for almost three years; to date, more than four millions workflows have been executed.
Official website: http://www.evqueue.net
Dear Nicoulas,
Great news! At Fosdem you were already talking about getting some code released in the open. I'm glad to hear it has become available, especially since the required additional short-term effort shouldn't be taken lightly. I am by no means a target user, but congratulations nonetheless.
Kind regards, Nico Rikken
El 18 de marzo de 2015 16:15:58 GMT+00:00, Nicolas JEAN jean@fsfeurope.org escribió:
Dear Free Software fans,
It is not without emotion that I come to announce to you today the availability as Free Software of some code we have been developing - and extensively using - here at Que Choisir.
I'm posting here under the announcement we came up with and will keep it otherwise short.
If you know of any website that would fancy publishing this kind of news, let me hear it :)
Cheers, Nico
= Announcement =
EvQueue is a free and open source task scheduler and queueing engine. It handles the planning of simple tasks but also that of workflows, chaining basic pieces of code to more complex endeavours. The description of how tasks are linked together is based on XML and XPath, making workflow structure rely on standard and well-known technologies.
EvQueue's queueing engine is written in C++ and is event-driven, making
it leightweight and very fast. The web interface is written in PHP. It allows monitoring of running tasks and workflows, new workflows creation (including a GUI mode), and
tasks scheduling.
Alongside the web interface, evQueue exposes a network API allowing remote control (launch workflows, monitor tasks...). Execution of heavy tasks is indeed a recurring issue in web systems, where clients behave in an asynchronous fashion. Using evQueue solves this issue by offering a simple follow-up system through AJAX calls on the client side, and an excellent visibility for system administrators backstage.
Documentation on how to install and use evQueue, as well as workflow examples, are available on the evQueue website.
EvQueue is being developped and maintained by the IT department of French consumer-protection NGO /UFC-Que Choisir/. It is published under a Free Software license since March 2015. It has been used in a production environment by the organisation's IT for almost three years; to date, more than four millions workflows have
been executed.
Official website: http://www.evqueue.net
Sounds amazing! can it be used to automate jobs in desktop via a gui? Or is the focus purely on web admin/ server stuff? Is it like a free (faif) version of IfThisThenThat?
Hi Andrés,
On 18/03/2015 23:09, Andrés Muñiz Piniella wrote:
El 18 de marzo de 2015 16:15:58 GMT+00:00, Nicolas JEAN jean@fsfeurope.org escribió:
It is not without emotion that I come to announce to you today the availability as Free Software of some code we have been developing - and extensively using - here at Que Choisir.
Sounds amazing! can it be used to automate jobs in desktop via a gui? Or is the focus purely on web admin/ server stuff? Is it like a free (faif) version of IfThisThenThat?
Thanks for your cheering!
To answer your question:
- I don't know about IfThisThenThat, and if https://ifttt.com/ is the one, I'm not sure I understand exactly what it does... Can you give us more insight / info / use cases on this?
- evQueue and its management interface are pure Free Software as we like it :)
- although evQueue was designed mainly for server stuff, there is nothing preventing you from running it on your local machine;
- the evQueue engine is C++ so it can run on basically any computer (and it is packaged for debian);
- the monitoring/management interface does allow you precisely to automate jobs, those jobs can be any executable with any parameters. And the sequencing of those jobs can indeed be done using a GUI;
- that interface is web-based (PHP) so you would have to have a local web server though. Maybe we'll see more interfaces for desktop/mobile in the future using evQueue in the background :)
We are planning to add a section on the evqueue.net website with use cases. Maybe if you'd like to describe us a common workflow you can have in IfThenThanThat, I could work on having it using evQueue, and present it in the use cases.
Thanks again, Nico
El 19 de marzo de 2015 10:40:26 GMT+00:00, Nicolas JEAN jean@fsfeurope.org escribió:
Hi Andrés,
On 18/03/2015 23:09, Andrés Muñiz Piniella wrote:
El 18 de marzo de 2015 16:15:58 GMT+00:00, Nicolas JEAN
jean@fsfeurope.org escribió:
It is not without emotion that I come to announce to you today the availability as Free Software of some code we have been developing - and extensively using - here at Que Choisir.
Sounds amazing! can it be used to automate jobs in desktop via a gui?
Or is the focus purely on web admin/ server stuff? Is it like a free (faif) version of IfThisThenThat?
Thanks for your cheering!
To answer your question:
- I don't know about IfThisThenThat, and if https://ifttt.com/ is the
one, I'm not sure I understand exactly what it does... Can you give us more insight / info / use cases on this?
Well, I have not used it since what I read on their web page some time ago was pretty scary since it seems one needs to give login password to your service. Most of the services provided are proprietary as well. I'll give you some examples
IF you get an email from CompanyA THEN after certain time THAT use twitter service to say 'I got news from CompanyA'
IF new song from certain band came out on RSS feed THEN look for song on youtube until is there THAT is posted spotify or write up some statistics on Google docs.
Or something of the sort. Anyway I really don't recommend it.
Maybe if you'd like to describe us a common workflow you can have in IfThenThanThat, I could work on having it using evQueue, and present it
in the use cases.
A use case for desktop is when I plug my phone to the computer look for the new files such as pictures and back them up into the computer. If later I plug an external hard drive do another backup there.
Take set of pictures of one day bundle them up into a short 30 sec video. Search cc hits for a song of the day and bundle it up into the 30 sec video. Send video via encrypted comms to family (request password).The Song and pace of images chosen automatically either random or related via photo recognition.
Use your computer over a month. At the end of the month spit out some statistics as to how you spent your time. If on average after 1.00 hrs your random reading on Wikipedia is higher than needed for next time you know you are better off in bed. Maybe have a way to monitor traffic in home in case you use tablet or phone too much?
Basically all that stuff that some people do with clever scripts, addons on webbrowsers and email filtering and mush it all. I guess it would only be programs that have good man pages an command line instructions?
AMP redirected email from K-9 email
On 20/03/2015 00:01, Andres wrote:
El 19 de marzo de 2015 10:40:26 GMT+00:00, Nicolas JEAN jean@fsfeurope.org escribió:
Maybe if you'd like to describe us a common workflow you can have in IfThenThanThat, I could work on having it using evQueue, and present it in the use cases.
A use case for desktop is when I plug my phone to the computer look for the new files such as pictures and back them up into the computer. If later I plug an external hard drive do another backup there.
[...]
Basically all that stuff that some people do with clever scripts, addons on webbrowsers and email filtering and mush it all. I guess it would only be programs that have good man pages an command line instructions?
I'm beginning to grasp what your goal is.
The hard part in the workflows you describe is to design the individual tasks, and evQueue does nothing for this. If evQueue was to expand to the desktop/mobile worlds, maybe a "task store" would come to existence at some point. I believe that IfThisThanThat and similar services do propose such a store with commons individual tasks that retrieve usable data somehow or perform neat stuff.
Chaining those tasks together is on the contrary evQueue's purpose. So if task A produces some data task B needs to reuse, it would fit into evQueue's core business :)
Cheers, Nico
Congratulations Nico, finally EvQueue is where it belongs. I know this news has been years in the making.
Does this mean some of your development is now in the open; on GitHub, perhaps? Or are finished versions just hosted on the project website?
Sam.
Hey Sam, great to hear from you! I had not seen your email yet although you were the first to answer :)
On 18/03/2015 23:44, Sam Tuke wrote:
Does this mean some of your development is now in the open; on GitHub, perhaps? Or are finished versions just hosted on the project website?
We haven't got any versioning system anywhere yet. But yes, all source code and packages are on the website. I guess we're waiting to see how the project is taken on, if people use it, if they are willing to adapt it somehow and modify the code.
Probably when we get contacted with some evolution ideas and patches we'll feel it's the time to open the development.
This being said, if you feel the urge for us to put the code out in the open, let me know!
Cheers, Nico
Hi all,
Am 19.03.2015 um 14:16 schrieb Nicolas JEAN:
We haven't got any versioning system anywhere yet. But yes, all source code and packages are on the website. I guess we're waiting to see how the project is taken on, if people use it, if they are willing to adapt it somehow and modify the code.
Probably when we get contacted with some evolution ideas and patches we'll feel it's the time to open the development.
That's the wrong way round, I guess in 2015. Put it on a git site and wait for pull requests. I'd guess nobody would want to touch any project without version control anymore today.
Best wishes Michael
Hello Michael,
On 19/03/2015 14:33, Michael Kesper wrote:
Am 19.03.2015 um 14:16 schrieb Nicolas JEAN:
We haven't got any versioning system anywhere yet. But yes, all source code and packages are on the website. I guess we're waiting to see how the project is taken on, if people use it, if they are willing to adapt it somehow and modify the code.
Probably when we get contacted with some evolution ideas and patches we'll feel it's the time to open the development.
That's the wrong way round, I guess in 2015. Put it on a git site and wait for pull requests. I'd guess nobody would want to touch any project without version control anymore today.
I was expecting this comment. Still I don't have a straight answer to it. Probably you're right about this.
Although I use a lot of Free Software from various sources in my everyday job/life/activities, I've never (version-control-)committed to any of them. I've posted plenty of comments and bug reports. Chatted with developers on IRC. But maybe that's me not being 2015 :)
All in all, your comment urges us to create a git repo somewhere. And I can't find a reason why this would be a bad thing :)
Thanks, Nico
Hi Nico,
* Nicolas JEAN jean@fsfeurope.org [2015-03-18 17:15:58 +0100]:
It is not without emotion that I come to announce to you today the availability as Free Software of some code we have been developing - and extensively using - here at Que Choisir.
Congratulations! Will happily add that to the next newsletter.
All the best, Matthias