[katello-devel] Thinking about NuTupane Architecture

[Jason Rist]

On Mon 07 Jan 2013 07:19:22 AM MST, Lukas Zapletal wrote:
> Hmmmm I don't think this library is mature, I'd rather stay away from
> it. And how does this help us to avoid coding our own UI components?
> >From what I read, Backbone.js is complementary to jQuery and other
> things.
>
> LZ
>
> On Mon, Jan 07, 2013 at 07:02:07AM -0700, Jason Rist wrote:
>> On 01/07/2013 01:50 AM, Lukas Zapletal wrote:
>>> On Fri, Jan 04, 2013 at 04:15:03PM +0000, Dmitri Dolguikh wrote:
>>>> As long as the views do not deviate from the standard ones and do
>>>> not require custom ui elements, the mixed (html+js) approach to
>>>> developing views works quite well. However, it introduces some
>>>> issues (in addition to the ones mentioned by Jason):
>>>>  - oftentimes controllers require additional methods to
>>>> retrieve/update a particular part of the view
>>>>  - creating custom UI elements is time consuming
>>>>  - testing of interactions between individual ajax elements/calls is hard
>>>>  - somewhat related to the one directly above - custom page/tab
>>>> updates are hard (i.e. only specific UI elements need to be updated,
>>>> the whole tab needs to be re-rendered, etc)
>>>>  - page assembly is mostly defined by templates, which makes
>>>> customization/testing hard
>>>>
>>>> What if we used pure js controllers and views (think backbone, or
>>>> other "real" MVC approach) working against API controllers? This
>>>> approach would potentially address quite a few of the
>>>> issues/concerns above, and improve testability too.
>>>>
>>>> I suspect that we'd be able to support both approaches (the one
>>>> currently used and pure js one) simultaneously, which eliminates the
>>>> need for "one big rewrite".
>>>>
>>>> While I don't think we should plunge into this head-first, I do
>>>> think the idea warrants a trial/spike. Thoughts/opnions?
>>>
>>> I can agree only if we would use some existing JS framework for that. We
>>> do not want to build UI components from scratch again. Do you have
>>> something specific on your mind?
>>>
>>> In general, I agree :-) +1
>>>
>>> LZ
>>>
>> I think Dmitri was suggesting that we use something like Backbone, which
>> already exists.  Is that what you mean?
>>
>> -Jason
>>
>> --
>> Jason E. Rist
>> Senior Software Engineer
>> Systems Management and Cloud Enablement
>> Red Hat, Inc.
>> +1.919.754.4048
>> Freenode: jrist
>> github/identi.ca: knowncitizen
>>
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>

I humbly disagree. Backbone has been around for several years and has 
had many iterations.  It's at 0.9.9 which is almost as close as you get 
to a one point oh.  We already use Underscore as a dependency so adding 
this would be trivial.  Aeolus Conductor already uses Backbone to 
provide a large number of UI syncing mechanisms so we have some areas 
of expertise to lean on as well.

-J

--
Jason E. Rist
Senior Software Engineer
Systems Management and Cloud Enablement
Red Hat, Inc.
+1.919.754.4048
Freenode: jrist
github/identi.ca: knowncitizen