[dancer-users] Opinions for architecture of a new web application

[Mikko Johannes Koivunalho]

Hi,

I'm using JWT (JSON Webtoken) in my app to manage API-first stuff (pure 
REST accessed with JQuery). https://github.com/ambs/Dancer2-Plugin-JWT
But I'm also using session cookies (Dancer2::Session::Cookie) on the Web 
side of the app.

PostgreSQL is my choice, too. Although I went the route of designing my 
own DB access framework on top of SQL::Abstract::Pg (SQL::Abstract). The 
framework supports the app's business logic and is an attempt to do 
things lighter than DBIx::Class. But don't take this route (your own 
framework) without a good reason.

Good luck!

--
Mikko Koivunalho

On 04/04/2022 17:23, Ruth Holloway wrote:
> Hi Andy,
>
> At $WORK we do a lot of this kind of thing; some of our older apps 
> are... less beautiful... than newer ones.  I've been gradually 
> improving things as I have need to touch the code.
>
> If I was doing it today (and I am, on a personal project), I'd be 
> doing it as a single-page sort of app, where you have a few templates, 
> and use JS on the front-end to make API calls. At $WORK, we use 
> Foundation, jQuery and DevExtreme UI widgets, and on my personal 
> project, jQuery, and WebUI widgetry and layout. There are fancier 
> tools; $WORK experimented with Vue for a bit, but while complexity is 
> not always your enemy, It Is Never, Ever Your Friend.
>
> For the backend, a nice performant DB—PostgreSQL is my 
> hammer-of-choice, with DBIx::Class. In your API routes, you can do 
> things like:
>
>    send_as JSON  => MyApp::GoFetchTheStuff(body_parameters->get('param'));
>
> Nothing wrong at all with using Dancer/Dancer2 as an API-first app. 
> with the REST and AJAX plugins—it may be slight overkill, but I 
> wouldn't hesitate to go that direction.
>
> Authentication—I'd probably stick with session cookies, and D2PAE. 
> There are probably leaner-and-meaner ways, but it's a familiar, 
> functional tool.
>
> I'll take a moment here and put in a plug for a couple of modules I've 
> released, 
> https://metacpan.org/dist/DBIx-Class-Schema-ResultSetNames and 
> https://metacpan.org/dist/Dancer2-Plugin-DBIx-Class. The former adds 
> resultset naming tricks to the Schema object, and the D2 plugin is a 
> forklift upgrade for D2::Plugin::DBIC, that adds the ResultSetNames as 
> D2 DSL words, with optional prefixes. So instead of 
> rset('Whatevah')->search({ foo => 'bar' }), you can just use 
> dh_whatevahs({ foo => 'bar'});
> (I'd be interested in seeing your D2PAE Provider class see my plugin 
> as well as the older DBIC plugin... or I can shamelessly plagiarize 
> your plugin to make a new Provider.) The plugins provide a way to make 
> your DB searches and find a little more semantically friendly.
>
> Just my two cents (USD). That, and 498 more, and you might be able to 
> buy a cup of $beverage_of_choice.
>
> Ruth Holloway
>
> On Mon, Apr 4, 2022, at 10:00, Andy Beverley wrote:
>> Dear all,
>>
>> I'm interested in your opinions on how you would architecture a new web
>> application, if you were to start one today.
>>
>> I'll be starting a new application soon and this is a chance to take a
>> fresh look at things. Normally I would go with a simple
>> Dancer/Template::Toolkit setup.
>>
>> However, I'm thinking that I should make this an "API first" application
>> (i.e. using static HTML pages and rendering all the content using a
>> Jaavscript framework making API calls)
>>
>> That then begs the question as to what the best back-end architecture
>> is, if only using it to render JSON.
>>
>> Also, if only serving API requests with the back-end, how would you
>> manage authentication? Would you still use cookies or would you use some
>> sort of tokens?
>>
>> Any thoughts welcome!
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Andy
>>
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>>
>
>
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