rich_clients.txt

Yehuda Katz

"If all I'm doing is sending JSON back and forth what's the point of Rails?  Wouldn't something like Sinatra be better?"  -- anonymous

Rails hides complexity very well.

Rails is a rich HTTP Abstraction

Fat Models, Skinny Controllers

Rails HTTP Abstraction

     ActionDispatch is it's own module
     Middleware
          getting all the things to work together is non-trivial
          Sinatra is not the answer for these things
     Session
     Standards-mode for Chrome / IE (X-UA-Compatible)
          This is automatically included
     Parameters
     Reloading (development mode)
     Security (remote IP spoofing)
          timing attacks - even with a network jitter you can determine through statistical analysis
     Option Segment
     Caching
          ETags, Last-Modified; Make sure to use this

     Rails is designed for negotiating the complexities of HTTP

     Controller Layer is in the controller

     Javascript Templating was terrible in 2005; It's better now

     Controller's job is to get state ready for rendering

API
     Rails has a good framework for generating APIs
     Foreign keys are named {foo}_id  --- ActiveRecord
     
     JSON APIs are up to you, naming keys is up to you
     JSON APIs error reporting format is up to you

     Hard to write a single client - you need to define the JSON

     Symptom of problem: ActiveResource requires too much configuration
          Need something like an ORM for Javascript

API Rules
     Rule #1: Keys at the root
          {posts:[{title:"This is a post"}]}
     Rule #2: No nested resources
     Rule #3: Nested objects follow as JSON API Rule 1

Rich Client Applications need bulk ideas
     Mark All Done - User clicks ==> 100 objects changed ==> click handlers done ==> persist to server

BULK_API
     Follows the 3 API rules


Server Side should be conventional
     By default Proxy to ActiveRecord
     ApplicationResource can authenticate and authorize

Machine Protocols
     Optimizing them for efficiencies; Optimized for consistency

Rails is great for JSON APIs