Building a Web Framework

# Building a Web Framework

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# Introduction

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- For those of you that don't know me
  - Adam Daniels
  - Work professionally as software consultant
  - One of the organizers of Software Niagara

- Working with Ruby and Rails since 2005
- Before Rails, PHP
- Before PHP, Perl
- Before Perl, C

- DISCLAIMER: This talk will be heavily Ruby centric as it's what I am familiar with.

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# What is a Web Framework?

Curated set of components that operate well together.

Feature-complete out of the box.

Productivity-inducing.

???

- Basis of web framework
  - A lot of decisions removed from your control

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# Web Framework History

* ColdFusion ~ 1995
* ASP ~ 1998
* Struts ~ 1999
* Drupal ~ 2001
* HTML::Mason ~ 2001
* ASP.NET ~ 2002
* Ruby on Rails ~ 2004
* Django ~ 2005

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- First recognized web framework was ColdFusion in 1995.

- Drupal is listed here but hugs the boundary of not being a web framework.

- Ruby on Rails changed the game for many.

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# When to use a pre-made Framework

* Quick team onboarding
* Easier hiring
* Quicker time to market *sometimes*
* Problems solved for you
* Less experienced team

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# When to build your own Framework

* Comfortable with web development
* A desire to better understand pieces
* Swappable components
* Control your destiny
* Only the pieces you need, nothing you don't

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???

Very much like a choose your own adventure.

Wrong component might cause some grief.

You generally won't die at the end of this adventure.

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# Picking your components

* Choose small, modular components
* Look at repository to determine "life" of project
  * Lots of open issues? Avoid
  * Maintainer not active on issue tracker? Avoid
  * Not comfortable owning project one day? Avoid
* License matches your project
* Build adapters for components you're not sure of

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What I want you to consider when choosing your own adventure.

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# My Web Framework

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I've already completed this adventure. Here's my framework for most projects.

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# Roda

* Core of our framework
* Routing (Controller) Layer
* Ships with many *optional* features

```ruby
require "roda"

class App < Roda
  route do |r|
    r.root do
      "Hello World"
    end
  end
end
```

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# Sequel

* Database adapter
* Model Layer
* Ships with many *optional* features

```ruby
require "sequel"

DB = Sequel.connect(ENV["DATABASE_URL"])

class Post < Sequel::Model
end

@posts = Post.all
@post = Post.create(title: "The Blogpost Title")
```

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# Erubi

* Rendering of Markup
* View Layer
* Fast and familiar to most
* Advanced features (capture tags)

```ruby
require "roda"

class App < Roda
  plugin :render, escape: :erubi

route do |r|
    r.root do
      render(:index)
    end
  end
end
```

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# Forme

* Rendering of form elements
* Applying of validation properties to inputs (red border for error, etc)

```eruby
<%|= form(@model_object) do |f| %>
  <%== f.input :title %>
  <%== f.button value: "Save" %>
<%| end %>
```
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# Your own toolbox

* blankman (https://github.com/adam12/blankman)
* friendly_numbers (https://github.com/adam12/friendly_numbers)
* roda-unpoly (https://github.com/adam12/roda-unpoly)
* roda-mailer_ext (https://github.com/adam12/roda-mailer_ext)
* roda-mailer_preview (https://github.com/adam12/roda-mailer_preview)

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# Thank you