Using backbone.js model concept without views/routing - rest

i would like to go for a step-by-step migration of my existing "serverside rendered" webapplications to a more "cientside rendered" approach.
my preferred starting-point would be to change the existing data-handling layer towards an ajax style approach using a rest http-api to handle put/post/get/delete requests.
so my question is...
is there an appropriate way to use the collection/model concept of backbone.js to my existing webapplication, without having to use routing/controller/views/templates?
i can add here, that i already have a working rest-httpapi using slimframework. and i would like to use backbone.js model/collections to fetch/save data. but html-rendering and event-binding should be out of backbone.js' responsibility for the moment.
thanks

i finally ended up with the "whole-stack" approach. after many hours of elab, there is no doubt to me, that an isolated usage of models without backbone-views and controllers is more painfull, than it helps.
thanks for all input.

Related

Can’t find best way for apply best in code design techniques in software dev

[Pre]
I have to say that I'm dummy newbie who is trying to get together important puzzles with such crucial details as DDD, TDD, MVVM, and EFCore. I have an about 10 years of windows form develop experience in complete wrong manner, and after I'm joined to Plurasight I'm understood that I'm just lost my last 10 years, and this is really sad :).
[Problem description]
I have an App that i want to re-write from scratch by using latest and greatest technics that've learned for the last 6 month on Pluralsight, but the problem is that these new knowledge’s is stopping me, because simply I'm afraid that I'll do it wrong again...(that is stupid I know, but it is what it is).
So back to my questions, I have a big problem domain, and pretty well documented business logic, which i have to turn in to the code. I'm understand that my start point is design data layer, for these purposes I want to use Entity framework core (I saw Julie Lerman's course on Pluralsight and I think's she is amazing and inspires me to use EFCore as ORM for my app). But at the same time leakage of experience produces more questions than what I’ve learned with Pluralsight, and I will try to write them all(please don’t judge me too hard)
It is looks like that I will need 2 or even more data model projects in my solution, and here is why I have multiple document set types, each of the type contain more than one reference books used to generate unique file names and data sheets. But it looks weird to me have 3 Data model projects such as MyApp.PackType1.DataModel, MyApp.PackType2.DataModel, and each of them will be preinstalled with the EFCore, and each of them will generates its own database based on Data Context defined by EF. Isn’t it very redundant or this is correct way?
I don’t understand how to join these multiple Data Models projects, including Shared Kernel into the one nice model
I don’t understand what is the best way to design my data classes? Should they be just POCO’s or I can design them as nice looking classes with the private var’s and public properties? What are the best practices in here?
Also I don’t understand what is the best practice to use a MVVM pattern on top of that, and is it applicable at all to use MVVM in this case?
Should I keep my Tests in separate projects like MyApp.PackType1.DataModel.Tests, or keep them in same project?
Best regards,
Maks!
P.S.
Apologize for unclear definitions and questions, English isn't my native language.
It's very complicated to answer your question because you have asked for a lot of details, but I going to provide a brief answer and I hope it will be helpful.
You can have only one model for your entities (DDD) and create sub model from this model in your end level projects (Web API or UI)
Read point #1
You have to create an Entity Layer project that represents your database and then you can create DTO's for specific scenarios
From my point of view, use Angular but you can use another UI framework such as React or VueJs, but I prefer to use Angular to build UI interfaces and consume .NET Core Web API from client
Create unit tests and integration tests for you Web API projects and as additional feature you can use Db in memory provider for tests
May be this guide is useful: https://www.codeproject.com/Articles/1160586/Entity-Framework-Core-for-Enterprise
Regards
Hm, multiple DbContexts (models) usually come about when you have distinct databases you are using. General rule is one Context = one Database. Exceptions can occur when there are a lot of tables that can be grouped functionally, but there are downsides to that approach.
A DbContext is a repository pattern but for individual tables. Using a Unit of Work pattern and layering with a custom repository provider would allow you to make it "appear" as a single database, hiding the complexity from the front-end.
Your entity descriptions are usually created as straight POCO. You can get creative with different DTOs
In a nutshell, an MVVM pattern goes like this:
Request from UI to a controller
Controller possibly issues multiple calls to Data Layer to gather data
Assemble data in a single ViewModel (everything the page needs)
Return to UI
The beauty of the approach is single roundtrip (request/response) to the UI
Separate Project in my opinion. There are techniques to spoof the database connection using EF so you are not using "live" data.
That CodeProject article will come in handy.

How many layers your small REST system should have?

I am building simple REST deployable using Spring Boot. Decided to create it by using failing acceptance test first followed with TDD until its green.
My module is pretty simple, I have 3 API's:
Retrieving list of data from datastore.
Adds item to datastore.
Deletes item from datastore.
I feel like it is good idea to abstract datastore and have maybe backed by Map data structure for testing purposes and use it with either NoSQL or SQL db if I want to for deployments/releases and end to end testing.
On the service layer side I am unsure since it would just delegate call to repository with no logic.
So standard approach would be controller->service->repository. In my case service does not do much(possible some exception handling but not more) and I will end up with interface and implementation as an extra as well as few more lines of code. I fell like going for controller->repository solution in my situation but it is not a practice I have seen and not sure how others would see it.
What's the best way to implement this sort of system?
I feel like it is good idea to abstract datastore
You are right. The abstraction is called 'Repository' in DDD (Domain Driven Design) for example.
On the service layer side I am unsure since it would just delegate call to repository with no logic.
I'm pretty sure there are data that you want to validate. So you should have a layer in the middle (e.g. the domain layer) which will be in charge of this validation.
Even so, if you feel like your application is simple and doesn't require such layers, go without. You will have less supple design, but more simplicity at first. Be careful: while evolving your app, you could run into trouble.
Hope this will help.
This is rather an opinion based question, but if you are asking whether a 3 layer architecture is a must, to that I say no. Be pragmatic, if you don' see a reason for a class/layer/module to exist, it does not need to exist.
A repository has a purpose (to store/retrieve), and the api layer has a purpose, to offer those things through HTTP.
Here is an article for building small services with the sparkframework: https://dzone.com/articles/building-simple-restful-api

GWT RequestFactory vs GWTP Actions

I am developing a GWT app using GWTP (Model-View-Presenter) that is deployed to GAE. Persistence will be done using Google Cloud SQL.
I am not sure what to use to send data to the database (persistence) and request data: GWT RequestFactory or GWTP Actions. Are they equivalent? What are benefits of each one for this scenario?
Thanks
I wouldn't use Request factory as it stands right now. Even for CRUD it's much more complicated to us than GWTP Actions.
RF is a great and powerful tool, but it's a little bit over engineered and working with complex data can be really difficult with all the "frozen" states problems that you will end up having. The real problems comes while using the editors with nested structures. You'll have problems saving the second level of proxies and even more the third level. Using editors with nested structures is a lot more easier with the SimpleBeanEditorDriver since you don't have to deal with the nasty frozen state for each level of nested objects.
For a simple object graph with simple CRUD support, RF is perfect, but as soon as you go to more complicated structures, brace yourself, it won't be easy to handle. Once you become a RF expert, it become a really powerful tool, but it still require more work than GWTP Actions to accomplish the same thing.
For server side security using RF, I've used AoP. On the other side, you could use action handlers, but even by using action handlers, there's some case where AoP on a service call is more appropriate.
For client side batching and caching... that's something that is really hard to achieve with RF. The documentation is unclear and dealing with frozen state within the cache is a nightmare. With GWTP-Action, there's already a simple cache implementation that you can use.
For a data-oriented app (CRUD), you should definitely use RF because it has been designed for that purpose. Now if your app is more action-oriented and these actions does not involve much data, it’s better to use the Command pattern. But nothing prevents you from using both in your app.
RequestFactory only.
Everything you need is there. If you just want to send a basic message you just call a method with whatever parameters you want.
Problem with Actions is that they're a lot more verbose than RF semantics...
Only thing you don't get with RF is the ability to use ClientHandlers...

Membership.Provider And Asp.NET MVC2: Do I Really Need it?

I see a lot of articles and posts on how to create a custom MembershipProvider, but haven't found any explanation as to why I must/should use it in my MVC2 web app. Apart from "Hey, security is hard!", what are critical parts of the whole MembershipProvider subsystem that I should know about that I don't, because I've only read about how to override parts of it? Is there some "behind the scenes magic" that I don't see and will have to implement myself? Is there some attribute or other piece of functionality that will trip over itself without a properly setup MembershipProvider?
I am building a web app, using a DDD approach, so the way I see it, I have a User entity and a Group entity. I don't need to customize ValidateUser() under the provider; I can just have it as a method on my User entity. I have to have a User object anyways, to implement things not under the MemebrshipProvider?
So, what gives? :)
No, you don't need it. I have sites that use it and sites that don't. One reason to use it is that plumbing is already there for it in ASP.NET and you can easily implement authentication by simply providing the proper configuration items (and setting up the DB or AD or whatever).
A RoleProvider, on the other hand, comes in very handy when using the built-in AuthorizeAttributes and derivatives. Implementing a RoleProvider will save you a fair amount of custom programming on the authorization side.

Need advice on removing zend framework dependency

I'm in the middle of converting an existing app built on top of zend framework to work as a plugin within wordpress as opposed to the standalone application it currently is.
I've never really used zend so I've had to learn about it in order to know where to begin. I must say that at first I didn't think much of zend, but it's funny because the more I understand how it works the more I keep questioning why I'd want to remove dependency when it's a clearly well thought out framework. Then I'm reminded that it's because of wordpress.
Now I already know there are WP plugins to make zend play nice with WP. In fact I'm aleady using a zend framework plugin just to get the app functional within the WP admin area which is allowing me to review code, modify code, refresh the browser, review changes, debug code, again and again.
Anyway, I really don't have a specific question but instead I'm looking for advice from any zend masters out there to offer advice on how to best go about a task like this one.... so any comments, advice, examples or suggestions would be super.
One area I'm a little stuck on is converting parts of zend->db calls to work as wpdb calls instead... specifically the zend->db->select.... not sure what to do with that one.
Also on how to handle all the URL routing with automatic calls to "whatverAction" within thier respective controllers files.
Any help would be great! Thanks
You're probably facing an uphill battle trying to get some of the more major components of ZF to work in harmony with Wordpress. It sounds like you've got a full MVC app that you're trying to integrate into a second app that has very different architecture.
You probably want to think about which components handle which responsibilities. Wordpress has it's own routing and controller system that revolves around posts, pages and 'The Loop'. This is entirely different from Zend's Action Controllers and routing system.
It's possible you could write a WP hook to evaluate every incoming request and decide if it should be handled by WP or a ZF controller. However, it is doubtful you would be able to replace WP's routing system outright with ZF's or vice versa.
Same idea, where Zend_Db is concerned. There's nothing stopping you from using Zend_Db to access Wordpress's database, but trying to somehow convert or adapt Zend_db calls into wpdb calls sounds painful. If you have a large model layer, you probably want to hang on to it, and find a way to translate data from those models into the posts/pages conventions that Wordpress uses.
Personally, I would use ZF to build a robust business layer that can be queried through an object model via a Wordpress plugin, and then rely on Wordpress to do the routing and handle the views.
Zend_DB_Select is simple SQL query (but created using objects) that can be used like any other query. Just turn it into string. Ex.:
mysql_query((string)$zendDbSelectObject);