At the moment I have a project where the backend is running in Flask + redis and the frontend is angularjs. The backend serves jsons and angularjs takes them to fill its templates.
Django has a bunch of features that I would be very interested in using (namely, admin and logging - I don't want to write that, it's boring). But Django also has a templating engine etc, it's the whole package.
I would like to know about the viability of using Django exclusively for the backend serving jsons (except admin, obviously). Is this a good idea, or does it have any obvious flaws?
Thanks.
It's perfectly viable to use Django for the back end for your site. I've done so myself with great success when I used it as the back end for a Phonegap app that used Backbone.
Tastypie is very good for creating an API - it's pretty easy to use, and consistent with the way Django works. I had a very good experience using it and can highly recommend it - it felt very similar to using Django's generic views. It also has excellent documentation, and can easily handle things like authentication for you.
There's also Django REST framework, but I haven't used this myself, so I can't tell you whether it's better or worse than Tastypie.
Regarding redis, if you want to use that for caching, Django doesn't include support for that out of the box, but the caching backends are made to be easily swappable and django-redis is available for using redis as a cache.
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I have a Back-end web application that provides me with custom API endpoints (Java - Spring). I like to keep everything separate. one API application that provides everything else remotely. My question is: What is the best practice to start a new Front-end project that connects to my API?
Requirements:
The Front-end project should be on a different server
The Front-end project should support routing, meaning I will have full control regarding the /paths. so no .extensions at the end.
SEO is very important in this specific case.
My preference is to go with React.js but I have doubts regarding SEO because the project I want to migrate from is WordPress (up and running with a good SEO performance).
I wish that I can find a simple solution with pure HTML, CSS and some kind of JavaScript.
Thank you.
React isn't actually bad for SEO. So long as you're taking the proper steps to ensure that the page load time isn't bad. If the site that you're migrating is massive, make sure you're lazy loading.
If you have doubts that Google or other search engines will render the js, then I suggest going with Nextjs like Rakesh K mentioned.
There's also nothing wrong with recreating the site with a templating language like Handlebars, then rendering it on an Express server, or whatever suits you. Just including this option in case you don't know React, and don't want to have to learn it.
So I am new to web development and all I've learnt so far is how to write HTML and CSS to make web pages and forms.
I'm specifically looking for a language that will help me store the data that is input into the form onto a database for easy access later.
I think PHP does that, but I was looking for anything JAVA related, and somewhere I could learn how to do it.
So far,
I've looked into JavaScript tutorial on W3Schools, but it seems like JS only helps make the front end more dynamic, but doesn't help store the input data anywhere.
I've also looked into the AngularJS tutorial on CodeSchool and it looks like Angular helps present the forms in a better manner and again, not in storing data anywhere.
Once again,
1) What do you use to collect the data input into a HTML form and store it somewhere?
2) I don't need help making the actual form itself.
Me personally, i use PHP, it allows you to take the data that was inputted and store it in a database. You can also use JavaScript/JQuery with PHP via Ajax that will dynamically fetch and store data.
Any backend lang can do it (python, php, java, ruby, js with node), but each one has it own ways to do it. Even JS at client side can do it, using LocalStorage objects, but it not solve all problems at data storage yet.
Angular is just the client-side. You will need a server, which will handle the requests and store them into a database. I would work with Spring Boot (JAVA) on the server side, and Angular 2 on the client side. Use REST for the communication bewtween them. Its really not hard.
Node.js is a fast Javascript runtime combined with a low-level API similar to the standard libraries of many programming languages (file system access, buffers, streams, i/o, etc.).
Angular is a model-view-controller framework for client-side JS development. It can be used with Node.js as a backend, or anything else. Its main feature is 2-way data-binding, and addresses most of the concerns of a single-page web app within the framework.
React is often compared to Angular, because it is a front-end library, but it is not a framework. It is simply the view layer, with a large ecosystem of open-source projects supporting it. The big conceptual difference is a uni-directional data flow, rather than 2-way data binding. You need a lot more besides React to make a full application, but React handles it's use case exceptionally well. React is amazing on the client side, but it’s ability to be rendered on the server side makes it truly special. This is because React uses a virtual DOM instead of the real one, and allows us to render our components to markup. Node.js makes a great backend for React as well, but again, it can work with any backend.
The MEAN stack is a popular web development stack made up of MongoDB, Express, AngularJS, and Node.js. MEAN has gained popularity because it allows developers to program in JavaScript on both the client and the server. The MEAN stack enables a perfect harmony of JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) development: MongoDB stores data in a JSON-like format, Express and Node.js facilitate easy JSON query creation, and AngularJS allows the client to seamlessly send and receive JSON documents.
MEAN is generally used to create browser-based web applications because AngularJS (client-side) and Express (server-side) are both frameworks for web apps. Another compelling use case for MEAN is the development of RESTful API servers. Creating RESTful API servers has become an increasingly important and common development task, as applications increasingly need to gracefully support a variety of end-user devices, such as mobile phones and tablets.
This was the overview of all the new booming technologies.. Based on this you can decide what you need and what you want to learn.. Thanks, Hope this overview helps you to decide.
My favorite for Rest Api is Flask(python micro framework) it is build for create Rest Api. and for php falcon has it own micro frame work. if you use nodejs it is easy to communicate between backend and frontend and good with not sql dB like mongo db.
The right answer should be the database or localStorage/sessionStorage.
The decision in between which answer chose, depends if you want to share the data between Browsers/Computers or if you just want to temporarily store the data for the user so he won't need to fill the form once again.
For temporarily storage chose localStorage/sessionStorage (javascript).
For other cases chose to store the data in a Database.
My project would be a kind of craiglist, a site where users could post anouncements (evereday-life objects, cars, flat etc.). So, authentication, profile page, content creation, display the for-sale objects etc.
I have developed a very large part of the backend: I have a RESTful API in three-tier architecture developed in java. It makes the link with the db, to provide me with different urls and send me the relevant JSON.
URLs example:
http://api.mywebsite.fr/user?userid=1 sends me back:
{"user": {"username": "jdoe1234", "email", "jdoe1234#gmail.com"}}
I have urls for all actions performed on the entire site (anouncement creation, last data updates ... everything, and I've carefully declared them POST, GET, UPDATE, DELETE, etc.). There is also oAuth to protect the API from queries that are not allowed for the token.
That's all for the "server" aspect, I think that there is no problem with that.
But if all the actions are managed by the webservice, I do not see the interest that could bring me a big server-side framework like Symfony/cakePHP, Zend, etc., to make HTTP requests on my different entry points, retrieve JSON and populate the HTML.
So I looked at client framework, like Angular, Ember and so on. At first, it seemed very suitable for my case: possibility of http requests, manage what to do in case of success or error, directly exploit the resulting JSON to populate the view etc.
I didn't even manage to make my choice between angularjs and Ember, both being very similar, but with the release of Angular v2, I fear the maintainability of v1 (if I choose Angular, it will be v1 , because the majority of tutorials and questions relate to Angular 1.X).
I don't know if I'm doing the right thing by choosing client-side framework, I am afraid that they 'brident' (not sure of that word, sorry) me. Plus, it's fully instantiated in the browser, so the user can change absolutely all code and data I provide. That seems weird to me.
I want to be absolutely sure of the technology that I use in case I make this application available to the public for example. I want to do things properly, in order to avoid maintainability or security problems.
Summary: With the things I already have (webservice / api), is it a good idea to use a client framework like Angular or should I stay on big server-side framework like Symfony/Zend etc? Knowing that I position myself in the context in which this platform would be massively used (craiglist comparable traffic).
I'd say - depends whether you want to be more frontend guy or backend guy in future. If you want to be full stack developer then it doesn't apply.
In my opinion, both Symfony/Zend or other big server-side frameworks aren't so exciting as dynamic frontend JavaScript frameworks like Ember/Angular/React.
Also, if you have already RESTful API and OAuth authentication implemented in backend part I'd go with Ember. Why? Ember Data is great tool for talking to backend API. It's mature, it lazily loads records when they're needed and it's very customizable.
it's fully instantiated in the browser,so the user can change
absolutely all code and data I provide...
Ember has built in security like sanitizing data which is rendered in it's templating language - HTMLBars. Also, there's CORS and content security policy (CSP) standard which is implemented in Ember.
I want to be absolutely sure of the technology that I use in case I
make this application available to the public for example. I want to
do things properly, in order to avoid maintainability or security
problems .
In Ember you can create mature, secure, production-ready applications, but you need to comfortable with your Ember skills to some degree to build such ambitious web application, but it's part of building every application.
With the things that i already have(webservice / api), is it a good
idea to use a client framework like Angular?
Yes, it's very popular solution to use MEAN stack or go with Ember + RESTful API.
Why should I choose Ember instead of Angular (which have a larger
community/tutorials/answered questions) ?
Angular has larger community/tutorials/answered questions, but when I started some side project with Angular to learn its possible advantages over Ember, I was surprised how there was no consensus in it's community for doing one thing. So, instead of fast search how to declare and use directives (I think it was the thing that confused me) I have to do another research which way is the best. Also, there are lots of ways to setup project (where to put custom directives, different Angular objects) and you have to do another research which one to choose. I ended up using repo healthy-gulp-angular as my template, but you can see it hasn't been updated for 8 months, but I think during these 8 months Angular had a lot of changes and I'm not sure if this repo is the best choice.
In Ember you have Ember CLI tool which is built with Convention over Configuration principle. You have also Ember Data which utilizes JSON API standard - if you don't have JSON API compliant server side right now, you can write custom adapter to normalize server responses or change how backend replies. In Ember you don't have all that headache and different best solutions to do 1 basic thing depending who you ask.
What means "Single page application" ?
Single-page application is basically a page which doesn't have to reload all assets and HTML when you navigate. It's advantage over PHP - when user moves to another location he downloads only new data for that route. More info here.
Does those frameworks allow me to create real routes ? (
www.myapp/profil/userid etc )
Yes, of course. You don't even need # in your URL. With simple rewrite rule and small amount of logic for profile route and specified path profile/:userid, when user will open URL www.myapp/profile/userid he will be automatically taken to profile route, and userid would be interpreted as route parameter, so you can take this userid and find user record from the store in model hook.
Client = speed, Server = stability
JS frameworks updates once per week
Non-Js back-end once per year
Client side depends to behavior depending on browser
Back is related only on machine but not on environment
I chose FE coz I tired to debug code by writing variables values to database to actually see what is going on in controllers -_-
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!
To preface; I'm an experienced web developer, though I have barely used nodejs, and have not yet had the opportunity to work with emberjs (though I've done a decent amount of work with backbone).
I'm about to start a project to build a web based writing application (literature). In theory, the user would potentially have the application open for long periods of time, perhaps leaving it on. I intend to develop an expanding functionality set over time, which I would like to be able to drop into different places with relative ease. For example, perhaps develop a character list which I could then include in many places. I'm keen on using emberjs for the experimentation alone, but it also sounds like a good client side framework for the job.
I've looked at django briefly (haven't used it much before), but given that I'd like to use emberjs, it seems like django isn't a great choice as I'd be opting not to use many of its most compelling features.
Would writing my server side code in nodejs + express be a reasonable choice? The web application itself will have common features like login, admin, different permissions for users/tasks (eventually) - but I also anticipate some more beefy stuff.
This is a solution that works well for my team and I so far. While lacking express, Charcoal is a good starter project to get up and running with Ember without a Rails asset pipeline and Express can easily be added as middleware. In addition to using Express to serve your JSON, it can handle the minimal HTML needed for such requirements that Ember can't fulfill by itself such as SEO since content negotiation capability is very simple in Express.