Introducing Orbit.js

Orbit is a new standalone library for coordinating access to data sources and keeping their contents synchronized.

Presented at the Boston Ember January 2014 meetup.

Transcript

1. Introducing Dan Gebhardt @dgeb Boston Ember January 2014
2. A STORY THAT BEGINS AND ENDS WITH EMBER
3. 2+ YEARS AGO
4. 1.5 YEARS AGO
5. 11 MONTHS AGO
7. JANUARY 2014
9. WHAT'S NEXT FOR AMBITIOUS WEB APPLICATIONS?
10. ASYNCHRONOUS UI
11. OFFLINE SUPPORT
12. DATA SYNCHRONIZATION
13. EDITING CONTEXTS
14. UNDO / REDO
15. NEW CHALLENGES FOR DATA
16. DATA CHANGES OVER TIME
17. SAME DATA - MANY PLACES
18. SAME DATA - MANY STATES
19. SOURCE OF TRUTH ?
20. AD HOC CONNECTIONS
21. TEMPORARY CONNECTIONS
22. BLOCKING OPERATIONS
23. NON-BLOCKING CONNECTIONS
24. CONFLICT RESOLUTION
25. PRIMITIVE SOLUTIONS
26. COMMON INTERFACES
27. DATA NORMALIZATION
28. TRANSFORMATIONS
29. EVENTS
30. PROMISES
31. BLOCKING TRANSFORMATIONS
32. NON-BLOCKING TRANSFORMATIONS
33. JUNE 2013
34. 7 MONTHS LATER ...
35. A standalone library for coordinating access to data sources and keeping their contents synchronized.
36. • Plain JavaScript • No dependencies (excepts a Promises/A+ library like RSVP) • Supports access to and transformation of any number of data sources... as long as they support the right interfaces. • Supports synchronous and asynchronous operations • Supports blocking and non-blocking operations
37. COMMON INTERFACES
38. • Requestable - for accessing and modifying data • Methods: find, add, update, patch, remove, link, unlink • Transformable - for transforming data • Methods: transform COMMON INTERFACES
39. • MemorySource - an in-memory store • LocalStorageSource - an in-memory store that also persists to local storage • JSONAPISource - for JSON-API-compliant REST requests CORE SOURCES
40. TRANSFORMATIONS
41. {"op":"remove","path":["planet","1389295329110.3"]} {"op":"add","path":["planet","1389295895882.1"],"value": {"name":"Mercury","id":"1389295895882.1"}} {"op":"remove","path":["planet","1389295895882.1"]} {"op":"add","path":["planet","1389296188090.2"],"value": {"name":"Mercury","id":"1389296188090.2"}} {"op":"add","path":["planet","1389296196274.3"],"value": {"name":"Venus","id":"1389296196274.3"}} {"op":"add","path":["planet","1389296197897.4"],"value": {"name":"Earth","id":"1389296197897.4"}} {"op":"add","path":["planet","1389296199041.5"],"value": {"name":"Mars","id":"1389296199041.5"}} TRANSFORMATIONS Transformations follow RFC 6902 (JSON Patch):
42. • Document is a complete implementation of RFC 6902 • Transformation methods: transform, add, remove, replace, move, copy and test. • Retrieval methods: retrieve TRANSFORMATIONS
43. EVENTS
44. • Notifiers can emit messages to an array of subscribed listeners. • Evented interface can emit events and listen for responses. • Promises returned as responses can be resolved (first to resolve) or settled (once all resolved or failed). EVENTS
45. BLOCKING TRANSFORMATIONS
46. NON-BLOCKING TRANSFORMATIONS
47. • TransformConnector for connecting a source and target. • Two connectors are needed for bi-directional syncs. • Connectors can be blocking or not • RequestConnector for coordinating requests to data CONNECTORS
48. DEMO TIME!
49. + ?
50. • Ember Data Orbit Adapter • Keep Orbit in the adapter layer • Works ok, but doesn't allow for bi-directional syncs INTEGRATION OPTIONS
51. • Ember Data Support for Orbit Interfaces • Would provide the benefits of Orbit to Ember Data users • Would involve some breaking changes • Require use of Orbit-compliant adapters INTEGRATION OPTIONS
52. • Ember/Orbit Integration without Ember Data • Would allow for the most flexibility in implementation • Would add one more option to a crowded field INTEGRATION OPTIONS
53. SOURCES • Igor Terzic's Ember Data talk: http://www.infoq.com/presentations/ember-data • Alex Maccaw's post on Asynchronous UIs: http://blog.alexmaccaw.com/asynchronous-ui • Differential synchronization by Neil Fraser: https://neil.fraser.name/writing/sync/ • Promises A+ http://promises-aplus.github.io/promises-spec/
54. AND FINALLY... • Orbit.js: https://github.com/cerebris/orbit.js • Orbit / Ember example: https://github.com/dgeb/orbit-ember-example • Slides: https://speakerdeck.com/dgeb
55. Boston Ember January 2014 THANKS! @dgeb