Play á la Rails

My attempts to make my experience developing Play 2 web-applications (in Scala) more Rails-like.

I show 3 frameworks employed that draw nearer to the Ruby/Rails spirit than Play's default offerings.

Transcript

1. à la Sebastian Nozzi
2. Background • Working with Java since 2001 • Flirting with Smalltalk all these years • Involved with Rails since September 2012 • Hooked with Scala since January 2013 • Developing with Play since June 2013
3. Ruby Let’s talk about
5. “A dynamic, open source programming language with a focus on simplicity and productivity. It has an elegant syntax that is natural to read and easy to write.”
6. Let’s talk about
8. “Ruby on Rails is an open- source web framework that’s optimized for programmer happiness and sustainable productivity. It lets you write beautiful code by favoring convention over configuration.”
9. How Ruby is (self) perceived
10. • Heavily inspired from Rails • Fun. Productive. Save + Reload. • Convention over Configuration. • Routing. REST. MVC... • ... but I missed some things ...
11. ActiveRecord db:migrate Cucumber + Capybara Anorm? Slick? Evolutions? Specs? Rails’ vs. Play’s default offerings
12. not “railsy” enough
13. ActiveRecord db:migrate Cucumber + Capybara ActiveRecord (for Scala) Flyway Cucumber-JVM + Fluentlenium More “Rails-like” alternatives
15. case class User(var username: String) extends ActiveRecord { lazy val posts = hasMany[Post] } case class Post(var text: String) extends ActiveRecord with Timestamps { var userId: Long = _ lazy val user = belongsTo[User] } Declaring Entities
16. object Tables extends ActiveRecordTables { val users = table[User]("users") val posts = table[Post]("posts") } object User extends ActiveRecordCompanion[User] object Post extends ActiveRecordCompanion[Post] Declaring the Schema
17. val newUser = User(username=“Homer”).create() val users: List[User] = User.toList User.findBy(“username”, “Homer”).foreach { user => val posts = user.posts.orderBy(_.createdAt desc).toList ... ... user.posts << Post(“Ohhh donuts!”) } Basic Operations
19. Play Integration
20. object Global extends GlobalSettings { override def onStart(app: Application) { if(!Play.isTest) { val flyway = new Flyway() // .. get values from Play’s config ... flyway.setDataSource(url, user, password) flyway.setInitOnMigrate(true) flyway.migrate() } Tables.initialize(...) // ActiveRecord } } Triggering the Migrations
21. object Global extends GlobalSettings { override def onStart(app: Application) { if(!Play.isTest) { val flyway = new Flyway() // .. get values from Play’s config ... flyway.setDataSource(url, user, password) flyway.setInitOnMigrate(true) flyway.migrate() } Tables.initialize(...) // ActiveRecord } } Initializing ActiveRecord
22. SQL-based Migrations
23. package db.migration class V1_03__CreateSomePosts extends JdbcMigration { override def migrate(ignoredConnection: Connection) { ... ... ... ... ... } } Code-based Migrations
24. package db.migration class V1_03__CreateSomePosts extends JdbcMigration { override def migrate(ignoredConnection: Connection) { User.findBy("username", "Homer").foreach { homer => homer.posts << Post("I'm hungry") homer.posts << Post("I should go to Moe's") homer.posts << Post("Or order some Pizza") } } } Code-based Migrations
25. + Fluentlenium
26. • Write in plain English • Separation of specification / implementation
27. Feature: Posting status updates The goal of the system is keep co-workers informed by posting status updates. Background: Given that user "manager" exists And that user "manager" posted | first day at work | | meeting people | | working like crazy | Scenario: Posts are ordered chronologically (newest on top) When I go to the posts page of user "manager" Then the post nr. 1 should contain "working" And the post nr. 2 should contain "meeting" And the post nr. 3 should contain "first"
28. When("""^I type "([^"]*)" in the "([^"]*)" field$""") { (text: String, fieldName: String) => ... } And("""^press "([^"]*)"$""") { (buttonLabel: String) => ... ... } Then("""^I should be on the posts page of "([^"]*)"$""") { (username: String) => ... ... ... } Step Declarations
29. • Part of Play2 • DSL wrapping Selenium • PhantomJS for headless testing Fluentlenium
30. When("""^I type "([^"]*)" in the "([^"]*)" field$""") { (text: String, fieldName: String) => ... } And("""^press "([^"]*)"$""") { (buttonLabel: String) => ... ... } Then("""^I should be on the posts page of "([^"]*)"$""") { (username: String) => ... ... ... }
31. When("""^I type "([^"]*)" in the "([^"]*)" field$""") { (text: String, fieldName: String) => browser.fill("*", withName(fieldName)).`with`(text) } And("""^press "([^"]*)"$""") { (buttonLabel: String) => val button = browser.find("button", withText(buttonLabel)) button.click() } Then("""^I should be on the posts page of "([^"]*)"$""") { (username: String) => val user = User.findBy("username", username).get val expectedUrl = controllers.routes.UserActions.posts(user.id).url driver.getCurrentUrl() should endWith(expectedUrl) } Step Implementations
32. Conclusions
33. Conclusions • Satisfied with my choices (so far) • Integration was doable • Play flexible enough • to replace some parts • to let different libraries co-exist • Reached a more Rails-like experience
34. Some Thoughts
35. Some Thoughts • Programming can (and should!) be fun • Scala embraces some of that “fun” • ... but we can do more • Go check Ruby / Rails • Let’s steal get inspired from them ;-)
36. Thank you