Designing a client DB api.

[jorishermans]

Let us look at the how a clientside DB api should look like.

[cgarciae]

Id suggest this for the moment, it's a little naive because I know some things will be implemented as Futures, but here is the main idea:

Server

Cargo posts = new Cargo("posts", **conf info**);
Cargo users = new Cargo("users", **conf info**);

posts.publish ((Map request, User|Sender sender) 
{
    if (sender.is (/*some filtering here*/))
        return posts.find(request).filter (/*send a subset of the data*/).
    ...
})

//Maybe also like this

@Publish ('posts')
filterClientPosts (Map request, User|Sender sender)
{
    if (sender.is (/*some filtering here*/))
        return posts.find(request).filter (/*send a subset of the data*/).
    ...
}

Client

ClientCargo posts = new ClientCargo("posts", {topic: "DB API"}); //Send with request
ClientCargo users = new ClientCargo("users"); //All users

posts.onChange (...);
posts.onError(...);

Client stuff should try to register with Angular so that any changes also update the angular templates.

[jorishermans]

That is a great first start. I guess we need to come up with a use case, for example a realtime blog, redit, ... so we can build this example with the new db client api! Probably I need to twist the proposal of you a bit, but it is already a great starting point!

[cgarciae]

Yeah, make the proposal realistic, I am just giving ideas. Meteor's classic examples include: a real time poll, chat, simple social network, Google map with real time gps position of events. I guess the poll is the easiest, you just voted for something in list, each item has a counter, set the getter and setter an angular model to interact with the client-side DB... magic :)

[jorishermans]

I crearted an angular force example application in this github repo. https://github.com/jorishermans/angular-force-example

It is a start ;-)

[cgarciae]

Could you explain to me this peace of code?

 // Construct page
    fs.server.on("/", (req, model) {
       return "angularforce";
    });

It looks like a basic REST request serving a page, and you don't use sender.send. What is going on here?

[jorishermans]

Yes, this is to handle a page, under the hood it is using ForceMVC it return a viewname, in our case "angularforce" page, I prefer users to use this then using starPage: in the constructor ForceServer. But you are right it is to confusing.

I am a beginner with angular.dart so if you can improve my angular code, that would be nice!

[cgarciae]

I also like this API better to serve the start page, but how do you tell when you are using MVC to serve stuff or normal WebSocket messaging?

[cgarciae]

I am also new to angular and Dart in general. I'll run your example as soon as I have the time.

[jorishermans]

forceServer.server.on(... // HTTP Requests => will become forceServer.server.use(... forceServer.on(... // WebSocket messaging

But we need to take this discussion out of this conversation. I added some cargo functionality to the example. So from that point we can look at how we can simplify all of the functionality into a better and simpler api.

[cgarciae]

Can you point me to the cargo part in the example? I just checked but I don't see it.

Is Cargo already running on the client?!?!? If you give me some basic info on how to use it I can start making suggestions.

[jorishermans]

No cargo is for the moment only on the server! I just did a commit! I think we need to work in steps ;-)

[cgarciae]

Ok. I'll check.

[jorishermans]

You can view and look at the implementation of the experimental branch of dart force here.

https://github.com/jorishermans/aproducthuntdart

It is a product hunt example that makes it possible to add and update the records. Would be great if we could get some feedback on this!

[jorishermans]

Version 0.6.0 is been released with the clientside db api, you can look at this video to see more info about clientside DB api https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtrZLLzPT74

or look at our examples

https://github.com/ForceExamples/aproducthuntdart

or a simpler version of it

https://github.com/ForceExamples/asimplehuntdart