I'm thinking in create a framework, a little project with my friends, just to loose some time trying to build something, but we don't know where and how to start, then we are needing to know two things:
Which languages is possible to do this?
Where we can found some resources to begin(tutorials, sources...)?
All types of help are very welcome. Thanks.
You can use any language (that provides a mechanism for creating libraries) to build a framework.
Learn the language and development platform of choice, first. Creating a framework is just creating a library that provides a useful foundation for people.
Just trying to "Set out to build a framework" is probably not going to be too successful, however. Typically, a successful project, especially one being done for fun, is one that fills some need... Think about what you are developing, or what you want to develop. Create a project that is exciting, fun, and useful for you.
If, in the process, your project gets large, you can always pull out the building blocks and turn it into a framework for other people to use, as well.
You can create a framework in just about any language in existence, with a few common sense exceptions (such as a web server in Javascript). The most important thing to remember is that in order to make code reusable, you have to first make it usable. Your framework really has to make something simpler than doing it the original way.
Just curious, what kind of framework are you thinking about making?
If you don't know where to start, what to do or how to do it, why not join an open source project of your liking? It'll be a great starting point. You'll have the chance to observe how to design frameworks, what are the challenges, practices for writing code, and answer a lot of other questions along the way.
Then, when you'll have a concrete idea about building something, you'll already have a lot of useful knowledge on how to make it successful.
Related
I wanted to know if anyone has been using AirBnB Rendr and is it stable and ok to use in commercial projects or is it still changing a lot?
I'm developing a website which can run both client and server based, this mean I need to be able to render pages and widgets server and client based.
The server is running Node.js, dust.js and has custom server based code to render the pages and widgets on the server side. I need to pick how to handle it on the client side.
Naturally I want to try and not repeat code, but obviously the client is different I can:
Keep my current page based server rendering and develop custom
client side code.
Use backbone.js on client side and keep my server based code the
same.
Use AirBnB rendr that is based on Node.js and backbone to use the
same code on client and o server. AirBnB Rendr Library
I like the 3rd idea very much, but I'm looking for some input from you guys.
Has anyone used it? any experience with it in terms of stability and/or how often their api changes etc?
I've just started playing around with Rendr. If I ignore the learning curve and oboarding friction, I like it a lot and I plan to write my next large production app using Rendr.
Unfortunately, as bababa listed above, the documentation needs a lot of work. There is an explanation of how Rendr works in its README and the example app's README but beyond that you'll need to source dive in order to figure out how the gears are turning. Currently, there is no forum for questions (other than stack overflow :D) and I've had a hard time figuring out its idioms on my own.
Despite all the struggles, I finally see the light and I'm starting to understand why Rendr is so powerful.
tl;dr - If you're willing to source dive and figure out your own workflow, I would suggest using Rendr. Otherwise, I would recommend going old school by writing a traditional client app with a more mature library. (is it too early to say that? =X)
Well given AirBnb is a successful commercial enterprise, there's some validation that the library works well enough for them. This question is probably best answered by watching their github commit log for breaking changes. Given backbone is 1.0 and essentially stable at this point, rendr will probably quickly stabilize, but honestly your fear of instability is probably unjustified. I think rendr looks compelling and although my current project is using a very similar home-grown solution, I would consider using rendr in a future project or even porting our code to rendr. "Stability" per say is much less important to the web development community compared to other situations like packaged or embedded software.
I used (tried to use) and Rendr on a project and gave up. There are just to many limitations (currently) and the lack of documentation doesn't help. I ended up need to rewrite the source code to accomplish some things I would consider trivial with other frameworks, such as passing multiple collections to a view. It just wasn't possible (at the time I used it) and that was a deal breaker. Not being able to pass a collection of categories and results to a page was to much of a limitation.
I have no doubt it will eventually be ready for production use, but right now I would say unless you are an engineer at AirBnb and know how to hack the source then no, it's not ready.
If you really want to know if it will work for your needs, take a look at the issue list on github. That will give you a good idea where the projects at.
I will soon be developing an application to log and priorities worker shifts. It only needs to be small, and simple, but I am wondering what framework to use. All that needs to happen is boxes with names are in 3 lists, and the user can switch these around at will. It must log the times, which I will need access to in real time.
Im new to application development of this sort, and would like any suggestions. I have time to learn new technologies / languages.
Portability / device independence would also be useful. Should I consider a Web Application in Javascript? or something more like Python.
Thanks.
Even if your application is going to be simple that does not mean that whole system will be simple too. I can imagine that your app will serve only as a front end to something much bigger. If that is a case and you really have freedom to choose what language you will develop your app with consider choosing something that you will feel comfortable to work with. But before you will make your decision I would go to whoever gave you that task and try to get as much information about it as you can because expected features can help in choosing technology.
First of all, it seems that it is up to you to decide if it should be web or desktop app. In my opinion it is completely wrong situation. You should get clear requirements on what kind of application customer expects and in what environment it should work. And I would not move a finger towards a code before somebody gave me that information. You write that portability and device independence would be useful but is it actual requirement or you just think it would be nice feature to deliver?
EDITED (to answer a question in comment)
Probably there is as much possible solutions as people that would answer you so in the end you will have to make your own choices.
One way of doing it (considering that you want to learn something new and have a challenge :) would be implement WCF service that would act as a data provider from your database (so every GetUsers(), GetVacationDays() methods would be in it) and it would take care of some business logic (for example CalculateMaxValidWorkingTime() or whatever). That service would be a real power horse of your system. Since you don't have clear requirement whether it should be desktop or web app you could satisfy both possibilities by creating thin clients that would communicate with your service and they would be just a pretty front ends. And if you keep in mind that you can consume webservices practically with everything from C++ to .NET (C#/VB) to Javascript to Python to PHP after you done with service you would not be constrained with one particular technology/language.
Regarding databases I won't advice because personally I hate dealing with them and it always was somebody else's task to provide me with pretty API :)
For some time I have been looking at the possibility to integrate PowerShell as a scripting engine in SharePoint but I haven't found the right solution yet.
My main objective is to enable event triggers in e.g. a list to call and execute a PowerShell script (by filename) on the local server. This would give me a lot of flexibility compared to using an ordinary event handler written in visual studio, but the question is whether it is possible and whether I have overlooked some serious security issues?
Since each and every unique idea that I come up with in many years have already be invented by somebody else, I might have missed an existing product/project so any links to such projects will be appreciated, thanks
In the spirit of "already being invented by somebody else", check out http://www.codeplex.com/iLoveSharePoint for some very interesting uses of PowerShell inside SharePoint. Some great code samples and documentation. Haven't tried myself yet, but seems interesting.
I see what you're trying to achieve, but there's something that just doesn't "feel right" about a user indirectly running script code on your server.
The key difference is that the script can be run by anyone logging into the server. Event handlers can only be run by SharePoint. Strict validation of any inputs would be essential. You should also ensure the script is signed so tampered scripts won't execute.
Also, scripts by their nature aren't really designed for enterprise solutions. There is less opportunity for best practices such as good software architecture, design patterns, source control, code analysis, unit testing, and reuse of code. It's also messy/difficult to share code with a common code base that contains web parts, controls, entities, etc.
Finally, introducing PowerShell means another technology to be maintained in the mix we already have with SharePoint. This might be OK if you are comfortable with it.
Depending on how much customisation has already been done or is planned for the future some of the points above may not matter. Be sure to think about how this idea would feel if implemented 6, 12 and 24 months down the track.
If your company or project places an emphasis on (or at least appreciates) the development of code and components that can be reused and shared across projects, what are the "social engineering" things you've needed to do to facilitate the re-use the code?
In my experience, code or components that are simply stated as being "reusable" won't be reused unless that code has someone to champion or evangelize it. Otherwise, people simply won't know about it.
How do you make sure shared components or reusable code work in your organization?
A couple of thoughts come to mind:
Make them very well documented and easy to figure out. That way, no one will give up on using them because its too confusing.
Make them very useful, and make sure they take care of problems that are so annoying that people would have to be crazy not to use them.
Another great tactic is to find out what code other people in the organization have in their projects, offer to extract some of that functionality (talk it up about how great it is and how you really want to use it in your project). Once their code is added to the shared module, you usually end up +1 fan of the shared library, and have an evangelist to help you sell the idea. Remember, people usually only do things if they are in their benefit - so making them look good and their code look good is strongly in their benefit.
In my organization, we had management help to foster the creation of a shared library. We also indoctrinate new hires to use it.
Then, we put good code that must be reviewed by everyone for usefulness and completeness. This is where the group buy in comes into play.
Also, we have a very robust, documented process for branching the shared lib for use in Visual Studio. Hint: we use svn:external property to manage checkouts from different repositories in the same folder structure. Potential shared code first exists in the branches before it gets promoted to the trunk.
The best way I've found to make people want to use your reusable code is to show them how to use it the way you intend. Provide a sample program using your library. Keep it in the source code repository just like any other project. Keep the sample program documented and updated when the reusable library changes.
Personally I try and demo code that I think is useful and give a comparison between using it and not using it to try and show why it's so much better. Normally this happens during weekly development meetings.
I agree that it really needs someone to evangelise and push for the adoption of new methods, one of the things I've found a lot of developers to not be that great at is selling themselves or what they've done, so it's worth working on these skills and pushing others to do the same, leading by example.
This may be a bit java centric; but publishing both binary and source in a corporate maven repository does wonders for visibility. It makes other people happy to use your code ;) We work with a lot of open source and find that ready availability of source code to read is really a key feature, especially when it can integrate directly into the IDE. We really expect that from in-house projects too! I wonder how we managed before we had maven ?? (Even ant can use a maven repo nowdays)
In a grad school class a few years ago, I did a case study on a web-based repository where programmers could deposit their code for re-use. This wasn't for my workplace, but for a lab with thousands of scientists, & engineers where there wasn't any other centralized means for sharing.
I have a Linux web server and I'd like to make some database tables (currently in Access) available on the web for CRUD. There needs to role-based security. What's the quickest path to develop this?
Also, which database would be best? I already have mySQL running on that box if it makes any difference.
I agree with Chuck, the question shouldn't really be about the language, but about the framework you choose.
I did something similar to you a while back, and ended up using Ruby on Rails, and the activescaffold plugin (http://www.activescaffold.com/) to provide a pretty front end. The actual code I ended up writing was extremely minimal. There are other plugins for Rails which provide role based security too (which I didn't bother with, I just had "you're either logged in and have write access, or you're not logged in and you don't") and which also mean you don't have to write much stuff yourself.
So put me in the camp for Rails come the religious war ;)
Edit: MySQL is a perfect database to use, so you don't have to worry there.
This will turn into a religious war between the Ruby on Rails camp and the Python camp, with a good smattering of the PHP and Perl. You should evaluate the langauges yourself and decide what is best for you. There are, of course, other choices, however listing those would just elicit mroe religious battles. Although, I would say all of those I listed would be reasonable choices. You can usually create a good design in spite of any shortcommings your chosen language may have.
I don't think language is the question you should be asking. There's no language particularly well-suited to CRUD Web apps. There are many frameworks designed for that sort of thing, though, in many different languages, and those are probably what you'll want to look at.
I think Rails is the best in general, and that's what I use for most projects. It's very well-suited to CRUD apps (to the point where it allows you to create a simple one without writing any code at all). But if there really were an undisputed "best" choice, you'd probably already know about it. Instead, some apps are made with Rails, some with Django, some with Cake, and so on and so forth.
If you want a solid, clean, stable CRUD web app that can be maintained and expanded for years to come, stick with the standards: PHP, Perl, JavaScript, CSS, and HTML. Learn those roots languages well. Take the time to do it right and focus on good coding habits like clarity, consistency, and organization. Practice good reuse of code, good naming, good commenting, and good database design. Test, document, and refactor. Take pride in the craftsmanship of your CRUD app. Learn it inside and out. Set the stage so you can later maintain and expand it. Your goal is to build something that will work well, last a long time, and make a great return on the business investment. Someone once said that it takes 10 years to become a good coder.
As for frameworks, plugins, and external libraries, that's wonderful icing to put on your cake. But never confuse the icing with the cake. If you want to learn to code, take the time to learn it right. If you're not comfortable coding a simple CRUD app, you'll be even less comfortable trying to navigate the framework-generated code. Coding is a wonderful gig. But never mistake the sizzle for the steak.