Posts Tagged ‘rest’

Introducing Pintura

Friday, January 22nd, 2010
This entry is part 2 of 6 in the series Server-Side JavaScript, Pintura, and Persevere 2.0

Pintura is a CommonJS/JSGI-compliant, server-side JavaScript-based framework for building rich Internet application with the REST architectural style, thin storage-oriented server design, and the consistency of end-to-end JavaScript. The Pintura framework forms the core of Persevere 2.0, and is the first framework built to run on multiple CommonJS platforms like node.js, Narwhal/Jack, and Flusspferd/Zest. It utilizes a layered approach to application development that facilitates straightforward, modular web applications.

Pintura is not a traditional MVC web server framework, which often conflate presentation and interaction concerns across the client and server, but rather follows the REST prescription of maintaining simple storage and serialization oriented server also known as thin server architecture or SOFEA. Pintura is designed to cleanly separate the concerns of presentation and interaction on the client, and storage and model logic concerns on the server. This design fits perfectly with comprehensive JavaScript frameworks like Dojo, General Interface, Cappuccino, YUI, and ExtJS that provide client-side MVC. In particular, Dojo has excellent support for standards-based JSON REST interaction that matches perfectly with this server-side framework.

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Posted in CommonJS, JavaScript, Open Source, Persevere | 3 Comments

Some RPC With Your JsonRestStore

Thursday, January 29th, 2009

REST is a powerful architecture because of its loose coupling design that facilitates a high level of interoperability. However, even the dissertation that defines REST states that one of the trade-offs of REST is that it “degrades efficiency, since information is transferred in a standardized form rather than one which is specific to an application’s needs”. That is, you might be able to achieve more efficient operation using a mechanism that goes beyond REST’s uniform interface, that is more specific to your application. This comes at the price of a loss of interoperability and should only be used if necessary, but with this in mind, let’s look at a good way to use RPCs that integrate with Dojo’s REST module, the JsonRestStore. This approach builds on the REST architecture, while allowing exceptions as needed.

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Posted in Dojo, Persevere | 5 Comments

More Query and Caching Power for Data Stores: ClientFilter, JsonQuery, and JsonQueryRestStore

Thursday, December 18th, 2008

Dojo includes several new modules which open up new querying and caching capabilities for Dojo data stores. dojox.data.ClientFilter is available in Dojo 1.2, and provides the ability to cache queries, update the query results and cached queries based on local modifications, and performs sub-queries and sorting on the client-side. The JsonQuery is a new mixin class for Dojo 1.3 that converts Dojo query objects and sort objects to JSONQuery expressions; JSONQuery can be used for delivering complex queries to the server. JsonQueryRestStore is a new module (for Dojo 1.3) that extends the JsonRestStore and combines the ClientFilter and JSONQuery such that any query can be executed on the client or the server automatically based on what data has been locally cached on the client-side, utilizing dojox.json.query to execute queries on the client-side when appropriate.

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Posted in Dojo, JavaScript, Performance, ajax | 16 Comments

Effortless Offline with OfflineRest

Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008

offlinerest.png There is growing support in browsers for offline capabilities with the HTML 5 specification for local storage, offline notifications, and offline application cache, but adapting an application to store changes locally and do synchronization when connectivity is restored remains a major challenge for developers. Dojo 1.2’s new dojox.rpc.OfflineRest module automates the local storage of data and synchronization by leveraging the Dojo Data and REST abstractions. The OfflineRest module augments the JsonRest service in Dojo such that requests are cached in local storage for offline access, and modification requests (put, post, and delete) modify the cache and are recorded for delivery to the server; immediately if online, otherwise when connectivity is restored. Furthermore, JsonRest is the core engine used by JsonRestStore. Consequently, you can simply use the standard Dojo Data API with the JsonRestStore and effortlessly add offline capability with no modifications to your data interaction code. The underlying Rest service automates the handling of caching, storing data locally, and syncing changes. In addition the new OfflineRest module has no dependency on plugins, but rather progressively utilizes offline features that are available, while still operating properly on legacy browsers without offline support.

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Posted in Dojo, Dojo Grid, Dojo Offline, JavaScript | 10 Comments

JSON Referencing in Dojo

Tuesday, June 17th, 2008

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Non-trivial data often has structures that cannot be well-defined with normal linear, acyclic data descriptions. Data that consists of cycles, many-to-one relationships, and non-local references often requires custom strategies for serialization and transfer of the data over JSON. Dojo 1.2 has added support for JSON referencing with the dojox.json.ref module. This module provides support for several forms of referencing including circular, multiple, inter-message, and lazy referencing using id, path, and combined referencing forms.

These references can be automatically generated on serialization and resolved on deserialization. JSON referencing is designed to decouple the topology of data structures from the meaning of the data structures in a way that is consistent with runtime object models of modern OO languages (foremost JavaScript). Separating graph connectedness concerns allows referencing and dereferencing to be handled by dojox.json.ref with minimal or no knowledge of and integration with higher level JSON consumers and producers, and permits more extensive JavaScript serialization capabilities.

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Posted in Dojo, JavaScript, Open Source, ajax | 12 Comments

RESTful JSON + Dojo Data

Friday, June 13th, 2008

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Dojo 1.2 now includes an infrastructure for interacting with JSON REST services and data storage systems. JsonRestStore is a new Dojo Data store for interacting with the RESTful JSON data sources. This new data store allows you to communicate with server side database/persistent data storage using the Dojo Data API with JavaScript and efficiently handles create, read, update, and delete (CRUD) operations. This can greatly simplify client server communication, interacting can be done simply using straightforward JavaScript instead of having to build your communication for CRUD actions. In addition, Dojo data stores can plugin to many Dojo widgets (Dijits).

Complex database driven widgets can be utilized with minimal coding effort. RESTful JSON is an increasingly popular database interface, and in later posts we will look at how JsonRestStore can be used with Amazon S3, CouchDB, Persevere, and Ruby on Rails. The JsonRestStore fully implements the Dojo Data read, write, notification, and identity interfaces. Therefore it can be used with any widget that can utilize these data stores including widgets with editing and live auto-updating features.

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Posted in Dojo, Dojo Grid, Dojo Offline, JavaScript, ajax | 86 Comments