There's gotta be a better way of programming web applications
3 comments
There are innumerable frameworks that can help with certain aspects of the transport chain but I don't believe there is a one stop shop Webapp IDE. Netbeans has a ton of features and you can pretty much build the entire DB->Server->Client architecture with it. However, there is still a lot left to the programmer.
If you are a java programmer, you can use Hibernate to manipulate sql with java objects, and spring to translate those java objects into JavaBeans/JSF/JSP for display in the browser. That helps cut down on the number of adapter classes you need to write by hand.
If you use other languages, I would recommend standardizing your messages to json since there are a lot of libraries out there for handling it during various stages of your communication chain.
If you are a java programmer, you can use Hibernate to manipulate sql with java objects, and spring to translate those java objects into JavaBeans/JSF/JSP for display in the browser. That helps cut down on the number of adapter classes you need to write by hand.
If you use other languages, I would recommend standardizing your messages to json since there are a lot of libraries out there for handling it during various stages of your communication chain.
I'm not talking about the IDE, but at the application layer.
Kinda like chaining together unix commands via pipes but instead chaining together back end and front end components.
Kinda like chaining together unix commands via pipes but instead chaining together back end and front end components.
This is an interesting idea - especially the idea of application layers as pipes.
It strikes me that these pipes "partially execute" - I suppose if you can characterize the types of partial executions, you could define the application in a generic way.
It strikes me that these pipes "partially execute" - I suppose if you can characterize the types of partial executions, you could define the application in a generic way.
The pipeline consists of apis and interfaces and transformations and validations and authentications and authorizations and sdks and data stores/databases. These take the form of database fields, HTTP APIs web browser input and output components, bits of business logic that transform and make decisions - basically everything that goes to make up an application.
So much of programming is setting the expected ins and outs of each step, and so much debugging is fixing it where the expected ins and outs are wrong.
Surely there has to be a better way that, in a unified and universally programmable way, allows the programmer to assemble a data flow, align the expected input and output fields and specify which bits of code run them.
Does this exist? Or are there projects headed in this direction? It's just silly to be writing code that essentially is dealing with connecting data inputs and outputs together.
I'm not talking about something that dumbs it down for end users, like the well regarded IFFT, but a new and sophisticated approach to programming that is oriented primarily toward defining end to end data flows through sophisticated applications and data stores.
Maybe some sort of universal component that defines data in and out and people write connectors so any and every bit of software talks to it. Good idea, stupid idea?