High-Speed Modern Web Apps with PHP & AMF

JSON has become the lingua-franca between web developers and APIs, but it has some critical limitations that stunt some possibilities of modern web development.

In this somewhat esoteric talk, I will discuss the possibility of using AMF - a binary data-interchange protocol - in web applications, using PHP & JavaScript. AMF allows for a wider array of data type encodings, circular references, and more. AMF has been used with Flash applications for years, is tried and true - and, as I will hopefully convince you, should be used in modern web applications.

Dougie Crockford, you're on.

1. High-Speed Modern Web Apps with PHP & AMF Danny Kopping #PHPJoburg14
2. • Mid-twenties • Senior PHP Developer @ Zando.co.za • Born ‘n’ raised in Joburg • Resident of Cape Town Bio
3. The Lay of the Land
4. Model → Data Layer View → Presentation Layer Controller → Logic Layer MVC
5. Model → Data Layer View → Presentation Layer Controller → Logic Layer MVC
6. A brief, mostly wrong (& somewhat offensive) history of Web development
7. 1989 Sir Tim Berners-Lee has difficulty finding porn. Oh, and some academic shit.
8. 1989 Like Facebook, the web was born in a university. ...and spread to other universities.
9. 1991 The first HTTP spec is written. It’s one page long. You can use GET.
10. 1993 The first Web browsers start to take shape.
11. 1994 Python, PHP, Ruby & Perl are all dra#ed/created/released Not a swastika
12. 1994 SSL is developed
13. 1995 IE 1.0 is released.
14. 1995 Oh, and Opera is released too. Its userbase has not grown much since.
15. 1995 HTML 3.0 is released. CSS 0.92 is released.
16. 1995 JavaScript is created by Brendan Eich. In 10 days. It sometimes shows. This is how much I hate gay marriage
17. 1995 Java Applets are introduced. SmartSketch FutureSplash Flash is created. The dawn of Rich Internet Applications is born.
18. 1995 Apache is released
19. 1996 HTTP 1.0 is released. The spec has now grown to 70 pages. Woohoo, POST!
20. 1996 XML 1.0 is defined.
21. 1998 SOAP is designed and released. POST /InStock HTTP/1.1 Host: www.example.org Content-Type: application/soap+xml; charset=utf-8 Content-Length: 299 SOAPAction: "http://www.w3.org/2003/05/soap-envelope" <!- -> <?xml version="1.0"?> <soap:Envelope xmlns:soap="http://www.w3.org/2003/05/soap-envelope"> <soap:Header> </soap:Header> <soap:Body> <m:GetStockPrice xmlns:m="http://www.example.org/stock"> <m:StockName>IBM</m:StockName> </m:GetStockPrice> </soap:Body> </soap:Envelope>
22. 1999 HTTP 1.1 is released. The spec has now grown to 176 pages. PUT, DELETE now available.
23. 2001 JSON is invented by good ol’ Douglas Crockford
24. 2002 Mozilla Firefox hits 1.0
25. 2005 JSON explosion AJAX makes its way onto the scene
26. A DECADE PASSES...
27. 2014 Ooh, it’s now responsive...
28. and the data?
29. Pretty much stuck in the early 2000s.
30. <metaphor>
32. (not to scale)
34. LOL.
35. </metaphor>
36. I used to code in Flash. The Dirty Little Secret ...and I miss it.
37. Yup. I said it.
38. What made Flash wonderful?
39. • Consistent UI across all browsers • Great scripting language (ActionScript 3.0) • Based on ECMAScript 262 (JavaScript) • AMF
40. Another Motherfucking Format
41. Action Message Format Created by Adobe
42. What is AMF?
43. What is AMF?
44. • Binary data serialization protocol What is AMF?
45. • Binary data serialization protocol • Originally used in Flash 6 / ActionScript 2.0 What is AMF?
46. • Binary data serialization protocol • Originally used in Flash 6 / ActionScript 2.0 • Two major versions: AMF0 & AMF3 What is AMF?
47. • Binary data serialization protocol • Originally used in Flash 6 / ActionScript 2.0 • Two major versions: AMF0 & AMF3 • Support for 18 distinct data types What is AMF?
48. • Binary data serialization protocol • Originally used in Flash 6 / ActionScript 2.0 • Two major versions: AMF0 & AMF3 • Support for 18 distinct data types • Many libraries available across several languages and platforms What is AMF?
49. • Binary data serialization protocol • Originally used in Flash 6 / ActionScript 2.0 • Two major versions: AMF0 & AMF3 • Support for 18 distinct data types • Many libraries available across several languages and platforms • Compression, data efficiency (references) What is AMF?
50. • Binary data serialization protocol • Originally used in Flash 6 / ActionScript 2.0 • Two major versions: AMF0 & AMF3 • Support for 18 distinct data types • Many libraries available across several languages and platforms • Compression, data efficiency (references) • Reconstruct object state across tiers What is AMF?
51. • Binary data serialization protocol • Originally used in Flash 6 / ActionScript 2.0 • Two major versions: AMF0 & AMF3 • Support for 18 distinct data types • Many libraries available across several languages and platforms • Compression, data efficiency (references) • Reconstruct object state across tiers • Can be GZIPed What is AMF?
52. Introducing... http://github.com/infomaniac-amf Infomaniac-AMF
53. • Infomaniac-AMF supports 10 data types Introducing... http://github.com/infomaniac-amf Infomaniac-AMF
54. • Infomaniac-AMF supports 10 data types • JS & PHP libs available Introducing... http://github.com/infomaniac-amf Infomaniac-AMF
55. • Infomaniac-AMF supports 10 data types • JS & PHP libs available • Fast-ish Introducing... http://github.com/infomaniac-amf Infomaniac-AMF
56. • Infomaniac-AMF supports 10 data types • JS & PHP libs available • Fast-ish • Unit-tested Introducing... http://github.com/infomaniac-amf Infomaniac-AMF
57. • Infomaniac-AMF supports 10 data types • JS & PHP libs available • Fast-ish • Unit-tested • Lightweight Introducing... http://github.com/infomaniac-amf Infomaniac-AMF
58. • Infomaniac-AMF supports 10 data types • JS & PHP libs available • Fast-ish • Unit-tested • Lightweight • Aims to be a drop-in replacement for JSON Introducing... http://github.com/infomaniac-amf Infomaniac-AMF
59. • Infomaniac-AMF supports 10 data types • JS & PHP libs available • Fast-ish • Unit-tested • Lightweight • Aims to be a drop-in replacement for JSON • AMF.stringify(obj, options) Introducing... http://github.com/infomaniac-amf Infomaniac-AMF
60. • Infomaniac-AMF supports 10 data types • JS & PHP libs available • Fast-ish • Unit-tested • Lightweight • Aims to be a drop-in replacement for JSON • AMF.stringify(obj, options) • AMF.parse(amfData) Introducing... http://github.com/infomaniac-amf Infomaniac-AMF
61. Data types http://github.com/infomaniac-amf Infomaniac-AMF UNDEFINED NULL BOOLEAN INT DOUBLE STRING ARRAY OBJECT BYTE-ARRAY DATE
62. AMF is the future. ...or what the future could be like.
63. Should JSON/XML die? No. Is AMF better than x? Not necessarily.
64. Oh demo gods... Grant me luck!
65. CODE DEMO