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.

Transcript

1. High-Speed Modern
   Web Apps with
   PHP & AMF
   Danny Kopping
   #PHPJoburg14
   

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2. • Mid-twenties
   • Senior PHP Developer @ Zando.co.za
   • Born ‘n’ raised in Joburg
   • Resident of Cape Town
   Bio
   

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3. The Lay of the Land
   

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4. Model → Data Layer
   View → Presentation Layer
   Controller → Logic Layer
   MVC
   

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5. Model → Data Layer
   View → Presentation Layer
   Controller → Logic Layer
   MVC
   

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6. A brief,
   mostly wrong
   (& somewhat offensive)
   history of
   Web development
   

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7. 1989
   Sir Tim Berners-Lee has difficulty finding porn.
   Oh, and some academic shit.
   

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8. 1989
   Like Facebook, the web was born in a university.
   ...and spread to other universities.
   

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9. 1991
   The first HTTP spec is written.
   It’s one page long.
   You can use GET.
   

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10. 1993
    The first Web browsers start to take shape.
    

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11. 1994
    Python, PHP, Ruby & Perl
    are all dra#ed/created/released
    Not a
    swastika
    

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12. 1994
    SSL is developed
    

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13. 1995
    IE 1.0 is released.
    

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14. 1995
    Oh, and Opera is released too.
    Its userbase has not grown much since.
    

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15. 1995
    HTML 3.0 is released.
    CSS 0.92 is released.
    

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16. 1995
    JavaScript is created by Brendan Eich.
    In 10 days.
    It sometimes shows.
    This is how much I
    hate gay marriage
    

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17. 1995
    Java Applets are introduced.
    SmartSketch
    FutureSplash
    Flash is created.
    The dawn of Rich Internet Applications is born.
    

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18. 1995
    Apache is released
    

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19. 1996
    HTTP 1.0 is released.
    The spec has now grown to 70 pages.
    Woohoo, POST!
    

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20. 1996
    XML 1.0 is defined.
    

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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"
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    IBM
    
    
    
    

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22. 1999
    HTTP 1.1 is released.
    The spec has now grown to 176 pages.
    PUT, DELETE now available.
    

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23. 2001
    JSON is invented by good ol’ Douglas Crockford
    

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24. 2002
    Mozilla Firefox hits 1.0
    

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25. 2005
    JSON explosion
    AJAX makes its way onto the scene
    

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26. A DECADE
    PASSES...
    

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27. 2014
    Ooh, it’s now responsive...
    

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28. and the data?
    

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29. Pretty much stuck in
    the early 2000s.
    

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30. 
    

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32. (not to scale)
    

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34. LOL.
    

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35. 
    

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36. I used to code in Flash.
    The Dirty
    Little Secret
    ...and I miss it.
    

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37. Yup.
    I said it.
    

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38. What made Flash
    wonderful?
    

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39. • Consistent UI across all browsers
    • Great scripting language (ActionScript 3.0)
    • Based on ECMAScript 262 (JavaScript)
    • AMF
    

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40. Another
    Motherfucking
    Format
    

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41. Action
    Message
    Format
    Created by Adobe
    

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42. What is AMF?
    

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43. What is AMF?
    

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44. • Binary data serialization protocol
    What is AMF?
    

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45. • Binary data serialization protocol
    • Originally used in Flash 6 / ActionScript 2.0
    What is AMF?
    

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46. • Binary data serialization protocol
    • Originally used in Flash 6 / ActionScript 2.0
    • Two major versions: AMF0 & AMF3
    What is AMF?
    

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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?
    

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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?
    

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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?
    

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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?
    

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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?
    

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52. Introducing...
    http://github.com/infomaniac-amf
    Infomaniac-AMF
    

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53. • Infomaniac-AMF supports 10 data types
    Introducing...
    http://github.com/infomaniac-amf
    Infomaniac-AMF
    

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54. • Infomaniac-AMF supports 10 data types
    • JS & PHP libs available
    Introducing...
    http://github.com/infomaniac-amf
    Infomaniac-AMF
    

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55. • Infomaniac-AMF supports 10 data types
    • JS & PHP libs available
    • Fast-ish
    Introducing...
    http://github.com/infomaniac-amf
    Infomaniac-AMF
    

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56. • Infomaniac-AMF supports 10 data types
    • JS & PHP libs available
    • Fast-ish
    • Unit-tested
    Introducing...
    http://github.com/infomaniac-amf
    Infomaniac-AMF
    

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57. • Infomaniac-AMF supports 10 data types
    • JS & PHP libs available
    • Fast-ish
    • Unit-tested
    • Lightweight
    Introducing...
    http://github.com/infomaniac-amf
    Infomaniac-AMF
    

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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
    

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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
    

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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
    

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61. Data types
    http://github.com/infomaniac-amf
    Infomaniac-AMF
    UNDEFINED NULL BOOLEAN INT
    DOUBLE STRING ARRAY OBJECT
    BYTE-ARRAY DATE
    

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62. AMF is the future.
    ...or what the future could be like.
    

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63. Should JSON/XML die?
    No.
    Is AMF better than x?
    Not necessarily.
    

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64. Oh demo gods...
    Grant me luck!
    

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65. CODE DEMO
    

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