We are going to build big social web app. We have to implements 2 big modules:
FrontEnd - single page app (Backbone.js)
CMS - system to manage contents of FrontEnd (daily content, sponsors, banners, links, special offers, upload media etcetc)
FrontEnd will use Node.js powered REST api which will use DB in the cloud (PG or Mongo - didnt decide yet).
My question is: should CMS also use same REST api as FrontEnd? Or should we make separate app (not node.js neccessery) for CMS that would "talk" with db in the cloud directly? My question arises because on previous project we had this issue:
Single REST api for FrontEnd and CMS.
When we wanted new functionality in CMS we had to implement it in RESTapi - and then we had to restart whole APP (RESTapi) which was problematic in production...
So:
Implement 2 RestApis - one for FrontEnd and one for BackEnd?
Implement 1 RestApi for FrontEnd and implemnt CMS as separate app talking directly to database?
How do you do it?
Out goal is to implement super-fast FrontEnd and Big/Heavy CMS (its is going to be bigger than FrontEnd). So we are thinking of completly separating CMS module from FrontEnd module. Eventual need for communication between modules would be implemented through redis pub/sub for example - What do you think?
Software architecture decisions are always very contextual - the people most qualified to make the call are you and your team, since you know way more than we do. That being said, based on the info you've shared, here are some things to consider:
Content Management as a problem space is pretty mature. Unless part of your revenue model involves innovations in how you handle Content Management, you would be unwise to build one. There are fantastic CMSes both open source and commercial, ranging in price from hundreds of dollars to hundreds of thousands. I cannot caution you strongly enough against the common developer fallacy to discount the value of our own time. Even if you spend an entire engineer's salary-worth on a CMS, you'll almost certainly come out ahead.
An architecture that uses a CMS should reflect the reality of #1, that CMSes are mature and stable. You want a strong and well-defined interface boundary between the parts of your system that are unique to you and specific to your revenue model, and the parts that are interchangeable with COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) - even if you do end up building it yourself (which again, I strongly caution against) - you'll run into impedance mismatch problems that are very hard to get out of and create friction to new feature delivery across the entire system if you design something as if it's bespoke when it's not (or vice versa).
Related
I wanted to start a full stack project, with all the tech stacks in the market i am confused to which one should i pick. I know reactjs in frontend, nodejs and a little bit of django in backend.
First should i use Reactjs or any other frontend framework which is a single page application so all the JS code will execute from frontend or should i use that or Nextjs which does the server side rendering so in the browser we reduce the execution of js. If i stick with Nextjs then suppose i wanted to create a mobile app for my project can i use the nextjs for that or should i shift the code entirely
2)Does backend language really matter, if matters which language should i use and If it doesn’t matter then in nodejs which server framework should i pick(ex: expressjs)
Should I go with server or serverless while creating the api then it does not matter with the framework(because lately I have seen many realtime apps backend code is entirely wrriten by serverless functions using cloud)
4)tell me some of the important things i should use in a realtime app like docker, Kubernetes, load balancer, and any other things you might think this should be present in the full stack app
if you know any blogs or articles about choosing the architecture for ur project comment down.
This is a very opinion and experience based question that cannot be answered as you are asking it (and is technically out of scope in stackoverflow). I will try to help as much as possible anyway.
In general many different stacks are viable and in order to be productive it is more important that you are experienced in what you decide to use. This is because most technologies have pitfalls that can only be avoided by knowing them / experience.
Besides the frontend technologies/frameworks you listed there are many others. Having some experience with React-Native as well, my personal current favorites would be Angular and Flutter (both Google technologies) for web/apps.
It does and it doesn't matter. Without knowing your specific requirements no recommendation can be given though. As a general hint I recommend to use a language that your developers love - There is usually a reason for it. See the 2021 Stackoverflow Developer Survey.
Server vs. Serverless is mostly a business decision and you have to model your costs including hosting / development / maintenance efforts vs. usage models. Another aspect in this decision is time-to-market pressure since Serverless may be a bit faster to finish in some scenarios.
This cannot be answered without knowing the details and requirements of your project. Recommendations could be from hosting a static single web page in a S3 bucket to running your own fleet of (cloud-)-bare-metal clusters or buying a supercomputer.
I am working on a monolith system. All of it's code is in one repository (Web API and background workers). System is written in Nodejs and MongoDB (Mongoose) is used as a data store. My goal is to set a new path how project should evolve. At first I was wondering if I could move towards microservices based architecture.
Monolith architecture creates some problems:
If my background workers needs to scale. I have to deploy all the project to the server despite only using a small fraction of it.
All system must be redeployed when code changes. What if payment processor calls webhook while system is being redeployed?
Using microsevices advantages are quite obvious:
Smaller code base for individual microservice. Easier to reason about it.
Ability to select programming tools best for particular use case.
Easier to scale.
Looking at the current code I noticed that Mongoose ODM (Object Document Mapper) models are used across all the project to create, query and update models in database. As a principle of a good programming all such interactions with database should be abstracted. Business logic should not leak into other system layers. I could do that by introducing REPOSITORY pattern (Domain Driven Design). While code is still being shared across web api and it's background workers it is not a hard task to do.
If i decide to extract repositories into standalone microservices than all bunch of problems arise:
Some sort of query language must be introduced to accommodate complex search queries.
Interface must provide a way to iterate over search results (cursor based navigation) without returning all database documents over network.
Since project is in it's early stage and I am the only developer, going to microservices based architecture seems like an overkill. Maybe there are other approaches I should consider?
Extracting business logic and interaction with database into separate repository and sharing among services to avoid complex communication protocols between services?
Based on my experience with working in Microservices for last few years, it seems like an overkill in current scenario but pays off in long-term.
Based on the information stated above, my thoughts are:
Code Structure - Microservices Architecture (MSA) applying in above context means not separating DAO, Business Logic etc. rather is more on the designing system as per business functions. For example, if it is an eCommerce application, then you can shipping, cart, search as separate services, which can further be divided into smaller services. Read it more about domain-driven design here.
Deployment Unit - Keeping microservices apps as an independent deployment unit is a key principle. Hence, keep a vertical slice of the application and package them as Docker Image with Application Code, App Server (if any), Database and OS (Linux etc.)
Communication - With MSA, communication between services become a key and hence general practice is to remain with the message-oriented approach for communication (read about the reactive system and reactive programming for more insight).
PaaS Solution - There are multiple PaaS solutions available, which you can apply so that you don't need to worry about all the other aspects like container management, container orchestration, auto-scaling, configuration management, log management and monitoring etc. See following PaaS solutions:
https://www.nanoscale.io/ by TIBCO
https://fabric8.io/ - by RedHat
https://openshift.io - by RedHat
Cloud Vendor Platforms - AWS, Azure & Google Cloud all of them have specific support for Microservices App from the deployment perspective, which we can use as an alternative solution if you don't want to deploy PaaS solution in your organization.
Hope these pointers will have in understanding the overall landscape so that you can structure your architecture for future need.
I am working on a monolith system... My goal is to set a new path how project should evolve. At first I was wondering if I could move towards microservices based architecture.
In what ways do you need to evolve the project? Will it be mostly bugfixes, adding features, improving performance and/or scalability? Do you anticipate other developers collaborating in the future? Are you currently having maintenance issues? The answers to these questions (and many more) should be considered in guiding your choices.
You seem to be doing your homework around the pros and cons of a microservice architecture, so if you haven't asked yourself why you're even doing this in the first place, now would be good time to do so.
Maybe there are other approaches I should consider?
There's always the good old don't-break-what's-going ;)
I have decided on a stack for a web app project. Its as follows.
Express JS + Knex + postgresql backend as a Web API layer.
VUE JS as the front end.
I have completed rough design of the whole system. I am stuck with the implementation part. Do I build the UI first and flesh out the API, or vice versa.
Usually you build both at the same time - preferably by two different teams to minimize tight coupling and leaky abstractions. Sometimes the API is build first and then the web or mobile or some other frontends are built for that. Sometimes a frontend is build first as if the API already existed and it results in a solid specification for the API to get built later. Sometimes the specification is created first and then both backend and frontend(s) are built to follow the spec. It all depends on the specific work style and requirements. It's more important how you to it than when.
I'm working alone on a personal project and my approach have been to work only at the frontend then mock the http part with a realistic mock that emulates a real api behaviour and only at the end moving at the api development.
I decided to use this apporach because in my experience no matter how the model and functional specifications are clear, they will always be subject to change request and you can prevent the side effects on your development workflow by testing and interacting with the actual UI.
Then you will find that the api developemnt will be completed in a matter of weeks not months with a better clear understanding of what are your (or your client's) needs.
Hope this could help you
I am building a new web app but i feel i don't have the big picture representation that I wish to have before building it so I am looking for resources to really understanding the web as whole throughout the full stack.
I've been a self-taught web developer since 2006 but I took a long break during university in 2010 and finished in 2014 and came out and the whole picture of web had changed.
I was familiar with the LAMP architecture and back then as long as you understood PHP, JavaScript, JQuery, MySQL, HTML & CSS you were fine; now MEAN is making a lot of noise and i just took a look at what Facebook is built with and it talks of HipHop which I have never heard of before and i feel quite lost with frameworks and languages popping out every other week.
I basically am looking for resources to understand the web as a whole, not just to create web pages so I can make informed decisions about building this and any other web app in the future. I want to know how all these new technologies are fitting into the picture.
Thank you
The big picture is you need a database, a data access layer that talks to that database, something to route the requests and something to display the result to the page.
There are lots of frameworks / technologies. IMO the LAMP stack is a bit old school. Not that it's not fit for purpose, it's just there are faster, better, easier stacks than that.
In terms of development languages and frameworks I would check out
Ruby-on-rails,
Spring-boot (with MVC, JPA, freemarker + mysql),
ASP.NET5
For databases mysql is always really popular because it's free. H2 is a free in memory database, I thinks it's a nice db to get up and running real fast.
Generally these days data access Is done through some sort of 'Object Relational Mapper' framework like Hibernate (if ur using Java), Linq (if ur using ASP.NET) or whatever ruby on rails uses.
For the view technology html, css is obviously standard but lately Bootstrap3 is really popular as a front end UI framework to make things a lot easier. In terms of Javascript, jQuery is basically a defacto standard these days. Something like Knockout.js or Angular.js provides nice data binding between your model and your view to make things a lot easier.
Not to mention as an extra layer these days people are also putting their apps inside Docker containers and deploying them that way for maximum portability. So that is something that is new and to you won't have seen before if you've been away from the game for a while.
Anyway, my favourite is the spring-boot stack. It has an embedded instance of the Tomcat web server and it comes all auto configured.
I believe the main changes that affected the course of current web development scenariois related to cloud based services, like Amazon AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and Virtual Private Servers (VPS).
Now is cheaper and possible to plan and develop a distributed environment to achieve a massive numbers of users. Servers are adapting their technologies to this new scenario and to providing easy webservices endpoints for mobile clients via REST APIs (like Google, Facebook, Soundcloud and almost every other service provider) using JSON for small data transfers between server ans clients.
This is the present and near future of web development. And we can no more close our eyes to mobile. Te mobile first era is comming.
You can use LAMP stack for webdevelopment, with or without frameworks like zend, cakephp and others, but the end product will be a REST or RESTfull service provider and a client to consume the services and integrate with many 3rdParties like Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Amazon services to build modern applications.
As for databases, there are now distributed non relacional noSQL hadoop, mongodb, mariadb bring more options to plan robust infra-structure and flexible ajustable for all needs.
To create a great web platform is necessary to know the existence of all this tools and possibilities, but specialize and deep learn only the tools you will choose to develop, because it is impossível learn everything, our brain cant handle :) and all se em to update very fast in this area.
Choose right one is difficult, there is a lot of options, but the main concept will be always the same, there will be a provider and consumer fronts, distributed or non-distributed, and a multi layered development involving UI, integration, business and data (big data) manipulation. But now on the Cloud.
You can find good official material for Php, amazon webservices, nonSQL databases, common 3rdparty APIs like Google Apps, Facebook...REST clients end framework, JSON...and there is a lot of good alternative sources too...get some open-source project example on Github (GIT is another mandatory tool to learn).
I particulary develop in Java now, Linux/MySQL/Tomcat on amazon AWS infra-structure, using Java-JSP for server and web client, and Java for Android..I just have to deal with Java environments and one language for Server (webserver and SO programs) and clients (web and mobile) development.
Well I hope I could help, I dont know if this is exactly the answer also if I made it clear cause my english is basic...
Well, have a nice weekend.
Leo
I'm currently in the planning stages of a new project which is composed of a storefront, a highly reactive user dashboard, and the individual products being offered via the storefront being highly interactive mini-apps. We're trying to get away with making the entire platform a SPA and design the entire thing on a Flux architecture with React for the front-end views.
One issue, as with most SPAs, is SEO. I've prototyped an isomorphic solution based on the este.js dev stack. One issue is that our app consumes pretty much all of its data from a RESTful server, which is separate from the web server serving up the SPA. This means that the web server would need to fetch a considerable amount of data from the RESTful server, to isomorphically generate the HTML snapshot.
I've considered having a separate crawler process of my own crawl the entire storefront periodically and isomorphically generate HTML snapshots of the pages that could be served up when the web server encounters a search engine crawler. I'm not sure if this is a good approach though, as it would likely introduce additional maintenance and, frankly, seems a bit fragile. I could just have the web server isomorphically generate the HTML on the fly, but I fear bogging the server down for ordinary users as the server would be pulling considerable data from the REST API...
Is there a better way to handle such a case?
Check out Yahoo's Fetchr, an open-source library that allows you to isomorphically hit your API. It ties into Facebook's Flux architecture, so you need to have Stores, but at the very least you can glean some code and concepts from it. If you're in the planning phase, you might even consider going with the Flux or Fluxible.
http://fluxible.io/guides/data-services.html
https://github.com/yahoo/fetchr