Axio Framework

My goal for the Axio Framework is to extend the same joy of coding, expressive power, elegance and efficiency to the specific area of web application development as is already provided by Racket more generally.

For the time being, this README will be a sketchpad of ideas that will eventually coalesce into Axio.

Status update: Although there has been little activity in this repository, I have been developing applications in Racket on a full time basis since November, 2018. After attending Racket Summer School in July, some of the macro-coding skills I'll need are coming along. I'm currently developing a significant web application in Racket for a startup, and I will be working on extracting the good parts into the Axio Framework over the next few months.

Aspirations

• A community of leaders and contributors that is genuinely kind, thoughtful, patient and effective.
• A codebase that is correct, clear, concise, efficient and valuable.
• An architecture that is modular, flexible, adaptable and enduring.
• A framework that programmers enjoy creating and using.

Initial Assumptions

Purely in the interest of time, the following are presently assumed:

• New releases may break things
• Operating systems: Mac OSX and Linux
• Database: Postgres
• Front end http server (for proxying, ssl, etc.): Nginx

Racket Web Links

• Spin

Documentation

Notes from a helpful IRC #racket conversation:

• Add a mydocs.scrbl file, using #lang scribble/manual
• To compile by hand: scribble --html --redirect-main http://docs.racket-lang.org/ +m myfile.scrbl
• To have cross-references between your own files, you need this too: --info-out myfile.sxref ++info-in other1.sxref ++info-in other2.sxref ++info-in other3.sxref …
• Make cross-references with @section[#:tag "unique-name-across-all-files"]{My section} and later (or in another file): @secref{unique-name-across-all-files} (hoping I didn't make any mistakes)
• if you're building a package, raco pkg install should build the docs too if you configured the package's info.rkt and other files properly.

Other info:

• Scribble Docs
• Examples:
  • Threading package
  • String module

Architecture Ideas

Bootstrapping

Web Server

• Allow for graceful restarts e.g. the equivalent of kill -USR2 for Unicorn
• Consider technical implications of streaming

Consider:

• Puma

Web Server Interface

Allow for plugging functions into the request/response pipeline. One motivating personal example is a server-side fix for a syntax error in a request from an iPad client which would've taken too long to push through Apple approval. The solution was a simple function injected into Rack middleware.

Mailing list discussion

Consider:

• Elixir: Plug
• Ruby: Rack
• Python: WSGI
• Scala: Finch
• others?

Authentication

• HTTP Basic
• HTTP Digest
• Form based

Authorization

Routing

See Routing.md

• URL currying? i.e. (curry my-helper-url a b) vs. (my-helper a b c) and produce a partial URL

Consider:

• Ruby: Roda
  • website
  • github
• Scala: Finch

Input Validation

• Some Rails validators
  • inclusion_of
  • numericality_of
  • presence_of
  • absence_of
  • format_of - regex matching
  • uniqueness_of (database interaction)
• Finch uses functions

Session Handling

Flash

Controller Filters

View Templates

web-server/templates

Web Sockets

Consider:

• Rails ActionCable

Database

• Migrations
• Functional query building
• Caching

Consider:

• Ecto
• Diesel
• Snooze
• Persistent
• JOOQ
• Racquel

Security

• Cross-site scripting
• Cross-site request forgery
• SQL injection
• String escaping
• etc.

Code Reloading

The ability to simply refresh the browser after changing code and have the new file automatically loaded is extremely helpful.

Asset Handling

• Minimize javascript/css
• Consolidate multiple javascript/css files
• Don't repeat the mistakes of the Rails asset pipeline

Logging

• Associate log records from the same request e.g. thread/process id

Continuations

According to Jay, the web-server/servlet module uses continuations, but everything else in the web server does not.

Other

• Background tasks
• Cookies
• Email
• File uploads
• JSON
• New project code generation
• Testing
• Continuous Integration
• Continuous Deployment
• Open Source Reporting Services
  • Test Reporting
  • Code Coverage Reporting

Links

• The Racket Language
• Issue Tracker

Copyright and License

Copyright © 2016-2019 Brian Adkins Axio Framework source code is licensed under the MIT License