I am new to web development and recently came up reading about AngularJS and SpringMVC and a few other frameworks. As far as I could understand, AngularJS implements the MVC on client side and Spring implements MVC on the server side.
And in another tutorial I read about using AngularJS with SpringMVC. This confused me a little.
Why do we need to implement MVC pattern on the server side when its already done on the client side?
If spring returns a view, then how is this passed on to AngularJS? Or what is the necessity for returning a view when Angular itself has a view to present?
Also, isn't having all the controllers and services on the client side (AngularJS) lead to security issues, because there are cases of security breaches for JavaScript. And also, wouldn't having those on client side load up the client?
I am a bit confused. Please correct me if I am wrong somewhere. Thanks in advance.
In a previous job I worked extensively with AngularJS and Spring. We used our Spring for the back-end exclusively as a RESTful web application framework. AngularJS was our front-end and would do all the views and client-side logic.
I won't go into detail on how AngularJS implements MVC, but AngularJS provides very good tutorials on their website where you can get the feel for how they do things.
AngularJS is an excellent choice and a fantastic framework. They have a huge community and are continually improving/rebuilding themselves. They are backed by Google and are one of the most reliable and useful frameworks I've ever worked with.
As for security/client side. You need to use some type of authentication to protect your site. Code minification is important as well. Its important to note that the client side is much faster than it used to be. JavaScript accelerators and better browsers have made Javascript extremely fast even on mobile. You can do allot of lifting on the client side without slowing down the user experience. Its also important to design good endpoints for your back-end which will simplify the work you have to do in your front-end controllers.
Here is a good example on how to consume a RESTful API with angular resource.
Spring actually has a tutorial on their website showing how to consume a Spring Web Service with Angular JS. Here is the link. In the tutorial they show how to do this without angular resource, I suggest to not follow it explicitly, using angular-resource allows you to centralize all your API calls to one place and then inject them throughout your web-application as needed. This helps keep your code more modular and prevents the nasty refactoring process that occurs when you have endpoints scattered throughout dozens of files.
Related
I want to make a lightening-fast web application and am wondering about the best way to implement it. It's a drawing app that will need support for vector graphics, but it will use a database to store data in user accounts. Here's how I'm breaking it down in MVC terminology:
Controller: Django, hosted on GCP Python app engine
Model: CloudSQL
View: AngularJS
I'm wondering if a Javascript/JQuery approach would be better, since I could have Django handle the database operations and am worried that I'll just be adding overhead with Angular.
I'd welcome any thoughts.
Once you use Javascript framework such as Angular.js and React.js. Your backend and frontend becomes totally isolated. First thing you should do it you gotta make your django REST API. Build your logics to do the vector graphic in your django REST API and build your angular.js app in away that it will "consume" your REST API services.
For the second question, it is depending on your architecture design. If your application is going to be DOM-driven, use jQuery since still jquery still provides lots of UI stuff. However, if it's going to be data-driven and you will use Javascript to organize and display the data in efficient way, choose Angular.js.
Please leave a comment if you have more questions. Thanks!
I would like to build a new web site using AngularJS. The idea is to build a server side API with Ruby on Rails that serve Json to a front-end AngularJS.
My question is: Is it better to create a full AngluarJS front-end or a standard ruby on rails front-end with some Angular ?
I know Angular can handle routing so a full application is possible but it looks like the default behavior is for single page app.
For example I wonder if it's not a problem to make some change in an angular page 1 that should modify a page 2. This page 2 will not be updated until an action is taken on the page or the user reload the page.
Is there something wrong in my approach ? What do you advise ?
Thanks for reading.
I have personally done variations of a number of angular apps, varying from SPA with 50K+ views to simply using angular as an extension of basic javascript for useful testing and modularization.
The answer to your question isn't actually all that technical but more has to do with the nature of your application and team (You're essentially trying to pick what type of screwdriver to use). As what you're trying to do is feasible on both the client and server side.
Important questions to ask:
Is your team more comfortable in Rails or Angular
How dynamic are your web pages expected to be
What browsers are you supporting
Is there a requirement for data latency and communication with the server
Are you also going to be reusing the server API for other applications
These questions will drive you towards use of Angular or Rails or the combination of the technologies to find the balance.
The routing mechanism in angular is only within a single window object.
If you have two windows you will have two angular applications. If you want to communicate between the windows object angular does not provide any special mechanism further than standard HTML and javascript.
I don't know what is the better approach for you, that depends in your business requirements and constraints.
I've built a REST API backend using Django and am now at the stage of designing a client facing frontend. Though, I can't seem to understand how this client frontend should be structured and which languages it should use.
PHP is server-side, and is usually used as the language for building backends. When coupled with a framework such as Codeigniter, it can also be used to play around with sessions, route URLs, and decide which templates to use. Though, I don't believe it can be used to call my REST API to fetch resources (might be wrong here, correct me please if I am).
Javascript is client facing but is used only once the webpage has been fetched from the server. AngularJS is great, but from what I've read, it seems it only helps add very dynamic functionality into already rendered static pages.
I am really open to any ideas, suggestions, and advice based on your experiences creating client frontends. So, back to my original question, how does one structure a REST client frontend, which language is best for this goal, and if which frameworks should one consider to use?
Update 1
Someone asked whether this client frontend will be run in a browser -- the answer is yes, it will. I am trying to build a Twitter-like web client frontend that interacts with a Twitter-like REST API backend. Basically, everything you see there when you go on Twitter's website.
Since it is a browser frontend I would go with HTML/JavaScript only. No need to use PHP or any server side language IMHO. This has the advantage of being extremely portable.
I would also use a JS framework for that purpose ( the trend nowadays seems to be angular).
REST really, really isn't new. It's been a part of HTTP at least as far back as HTTP 1.1
Have a look at this question: Backbone.js frontend with RESTful Rails backend? the top answer lists 20 possible frameworks for building a front end.
Thanks for your help, everyone. Found exactly what I was looking for here:
http://docs.python-requests.org/en/latest/
A nice little library for Python that allows me to basically make calls to a REST backend from within a Django application, which serves as my frontend.
AngularJS will also be used for to make the static pages that Django returns more dynamic. Why? Because AngularJS by itself can be the complete solution only if your whole site consists of one page. If you have multiple pages where each one has it's own set of dynamic elements, you need a combination of Django and AngularJS.
Apparently REST is still quite new and it seems there aren't many people that have stumbled upon this very fundamental question like I have.
Once again, thanks!
I'm developing a SPA application and I can't decide, whether to use server-side MVC framework or not.
I have chosen AngularJS as the client-side framework. I was thinking I could use Symfony 2 on the server side, but I also considered using pure OOP oriented PHP. Something like this - database class, model classes (User, UserDbManager, ...). I would use something like Slim to create the REST API.
It seems counterproductive to basically write the same code twice, once on the client side and once on the server side, if I could just use the server to serve the data from the database.
If anyone had done similar decision, I'd be happy, if you'd share your thoughts and tips about it.
I would decide depending on the complexity of the requirement.
If it's a very simple I don't see a huge difference in using a framework or plain old php.
But if it's a complex project, I would definitely go with a framework considering the fact that most of the core functions one might need are already there and quicker development.
Again, it would come down to personal preference too.
Codeigniter has been said easy to learn for beginners in framework.
Symfony and zend are more commercially used (I am not saying others are not, but I see more vacancies asking for symfony or zend development experience).
My suggestion will be if you are having angular js as clientside framework. Then take advantage of it and use some api on server side to just return some json kind of response. Why send html on network when you have angular js on clientside to work with dom. just send data from server to client.
I have also done same. I have jquery for clientside and i am using spring mvc to send response as json.
I am developing a Java web services application that is (mostly) to be used by other SOA clients. Currently I am planning on using CXF to publish my various web services & methods using SOAP/XML.
I am now being asked to investigate a thin client web-application for this tool. I have been looking into Javascript libraries such as ExtJS and Dojo -- and they seem really straightforward. Given that this is a web application and not a web site, I really don't think I'll be creating very many static HTML pages -- maybe even just one. Mostly I plan on using an XMLHttpRequest object to hit the web services I already have and take the results and modify the DOM.
However, I have never created a browser-based UI before and in the context of a nearly 100% Javascript application I am trying to figure what role, if any, a server side MVC framwork such as Spring MVC will buy me. Is it needed for this? Whats it good for?
If you use the CXF JavaScript client generator and go for a single page JS application, I don't see what a Java MVC framework will give you (apart from extra complexity).
Spring MVC is a web-based module based on servlets and JSPs. If you're writing a JavaScript UI that calls on services directly, I'd say that you don't need Spring MVC.