Seven Web Frameworks in Seven Weeks: Adventures in Better Web Apps

382 Pages·2014·2.06 MB·English

by  Jack Moffitt

Seven Web Frameworks in
Seven Weeks
Adventures in Better Web Apps
by Jack Moffitt, Fred Daoud
Version: P1.0 (January 2014)
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Table of Contents
Foreword
Acknowledgments
Preface
Why Seven Web Frameworks?
About This Book
What This Book Is Not
Code Examples and Conventions
Online Resources
1.Sinatra
A Simple Domain-Specific Language
Day 1: Building a Bookmarking Application
Day 2: Creating Views
Day 3: Adding Features
Wrapping Up
2.CanJS
What Makes CanJS Unique?
Day 1: Building Objects and Synchronizing Changes
Day 2: Creating Controllers
Day 3: Working with Models
Wrapping Up
3.AngularJS
The Big Picture
Day 1: Using Dependency Injection
Day 2: Creating Controllers and Views
Day 3: Building Filters and Routes
Wrapping Up
4.Ring
Introducing Ring
Day 1: Basic Towers
Day 2: Patterns of Bricks
Day 3: Other Ways to Build
Wrapping Up
5.Webmachine
Introducing Webmachine
Day 1: HTTP Request as State Machine
Day 2: Building Apps
Day 3: Illuminating HTTP’s Dark Corners
Wrapping Up
6.Yesod
Introducing Yesod
Day 1: Data You Can’t Get Wrong
Day 2: Views, Forms, and Auth
Day 3: Rumbling Along
Wrapping Up
7.Immutant
Introducing Immutant
Day 1: Beyond the Web Basics
Day 2: Building Data Pipelines
Day 3: Polyglot Apps
Wrapping Up
8.Wrap-Up
Key Ideas
Happy Exploring
A1.Bibliography
Copyright © 2014, The Pragmatic Bookshelf.
Early Praise for Seven Web
Frameworks in Seven Weeks
The title implies a breadth-first analysis of some fairly disparate technologies,
but there is a surprising amount of depth here, more than enough to emphasize
the essential qualities of each one. If you’re a polyglot, or aspire to be, this book
is a very large ball of awesome.
→ Jim Crossley
Immutant core team member; principal software engineer, Red Hat
Objective and clear. More than an introduction, it’s a head start! Just as wide and
as deep as any modern developer would like. I definitely recommend it.
→Pablo Aguiar
Software engineering consultant
This book is great fun. The authors guide you quickly through each framework,
in each case giving you a fast but clear, coherent, and surprisingly detailed taste
that includes major features, design philosophy, implementation, and testing,
plus hints for further investigation. Two JavaScript frameworks, one Ruby, one
Haskell, two Clojure, and one Erlang. If you like web programming, you’re
going to enjoy this book.
→Giles Bowkett
Experienced developer and well-known blogger
I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book. In fact, the Yesod chapter even gave me
fresh ideas on how to expose non-Haskellers to the strengths of a strong type
system.
→ Michael Snoyman
Creator of Yesod; lead software engineer, FP Complete
Foreword
In 2003, I took my family to Durango, Colorado, where we rode on the Durango
& Silverton train. The narrow gauges of the railroad once served well against the
narrow red sandstone cliffs, where every inch of space was at a premium. These
days, the train is a relic of the past, rendered obsolete by cars and planes that are
safer and more efficient. Time marches on.
Today, too, we witness revolution. Single-core computers are dead or dying.
True, their multicore descendants are technical marvels. They also represent a
tremendous technical challenge. The languages we used to depend on do not
work as well as they once did. As a result, we are seeing a new generation of
languages emerge. So far, no one has been kind enough to declare a winner.
Against this backdrop in 2010, I wrote Seven Languages in Seven Weeks. In
truth, I didn’t expect it to sell many copies. After all, it was a book about
languages in a Java world; a book about programming paradigms in a time
where everything was object oriented. Still, programmers sensed the danger of
our stagnating skills and embraced the concept that learning programming
languages for the sake of learning them can make you smarter and better able to
cope with change. The book was a resounding success.
Three years later, there’s still no clear leader, though functional programming is
starting to gain traction. We’re finding that the multicore wafer tossed into our
virtual pond years ago has created waves that are increasing in size and velocity.
We need more than inheritance to organize our code. We need robust
frameworks on the client to handle the robust development that is happening
there. And we need true concurrent frameworks to take full advantage of their
concurrent languages.
It’s just not enough to lay wider tracks over the narrow tracks we used last year.
In this book, Fred and Jack will show you the leading edge of people who are
reinventing the way web development should be done. You’ll see a traditional
object-oriented framework called Sinatra. You’ll move on to the client side,
where exciting things are happening with JavaScript. You’ll take a tour of CanJS
and AngularJS to see how to do full, rich client-side development. Next, you’ll
swing back to the server side to see what’s happening in functional languages.
You’ll encounter two Clojure frameworks in the minimalist Ring and the robust
Immutant. You’ll see a state machine--based design in Erlang called
WebMachine. If those aren’t enough to blow your mind, you’ll find the
incredibly powerful Haskell framework called Yesod.
The “Seven in Seven” books are designed to expand your mind. I am extremely
proud to bring you this next installment, Seven Web Frameworks in Seven Weeks.
It’s my sincerest hope that this book will take you beyond whatever tracks are
holding you back.
Best regards,
Bruce Tate
CTO, icanmakeitbetter.com
Copyright © 2014, The Pragmatic Bookshelf.