Tavern on the Meta

Webapp architecture A:
Build all business / data logic in whatever language (a mix even) and expose as a JSON API, then build the entire UI and site frontend as an API client. Initial output is generated by *some* code using an internal use of the same API (but skipping the HTTP overhead). Then Ajaxification ensues.

Webapp approach B:
Don't, just expose what you need as an API

My thinking with A is that you could theoretically build many frontends for the same 'site' and experiment with different UI designs and features

Not sure how conventional that is tho

----
I tried approach A in PHP once, it used an internal `api_call()` and APIResponse setup to interact with the JSON api without using HTTP. Some parts behind the API were in Python and others in PHP. Then the UI was built out of that

Tim Stone

12:56 AM

Hmm

So basically in case A, the actual frontend sits as a completely separate entity from the backend, making the same calls that client-side code would make to get data?

Aiden Bell

Yea, but on an internal loop to avoid HTTP

PHP+API = HTML + Javascript->API

API = Python/PHP/C/blah producing JSON from POST/GET/PUT etc

In the PHP+API bit, HTTP is avoided and encode/decode to associative array is handled

(where possible)

The frontend and the API could be 100% different teams

obviously

Tim Stone

I see

Aiden Bell

Seems like a flexible separation despite the overheads

Tim Stone

Yeah. I guess it depends on how much overlap there is in the calls made by the server and client side frontends.

Aiden Bell

Alot, very dynamic frontend. An authentication system keeps it all in check.

brb

Tim Stone

1:06 AM

Ah, in that case it would be very interesting to see how that works out.

Mark C

@TimStone I think "sacrilegious" would be the most accurate. :P

How do I quote an old message?

Tim Stone

If you hover over the message and open the menu with the arrow, you can copy the permalink and paste it in on a single line to onebox it, e.g.:

3 hours ago, by Maxim Zaslavsky

this is really cool!

Mark C

Oh, you have to do it that way...

rchern

or if you are using my script, /quote <id> (:

Tim Stone

Heheh

Mark C

1:16 AM

That is quite a roundabout way of quoting---no wonder @rchern made a script

Okay, I'm considering installing it---but I don't know how to do it. Do I need to turn on Greasemonkey or can this simply be added to the browser (FF)?

Tim Stone

It's a userscript, so you need Greasemonkey enabled for it to work.

Mark C

Okay

I was hoping to not have to get greasy

rchern

@MarkC, what browser?

Mark C

Firefax

rchern

ah, k

Mark C

1:25 AM

i had GM installed but disabled

but now it's not even showing up, with a lot of other addons

Tim Stone

Ugh, I still need to figure out how to fix GM.

Mark C

OH!

I just realized...I am on my mom's laptop

Tim Stone

Though I think you said that Chrome suffers from the same issue, @rchern? Where you can't view the user script on Github because it doesn't pay attention to the fact that text/html isn't actually a script?

rchern

aye

Tim Stone

I figured out where to fix it in Greasemonkey, but due to lack of information available in the extension hook that Firefox provides it's not as easy as I would have hoped to work around, heh.

rchern

1:30 AM

i thought someone said gm had fixed it though

Tim Stone

I don't see any updates for it, hm.

The code isn't changed in any relevant way in dev either, so I guess not.

I guess it's not that important anyway

Mark C

1:47 AM

@TimS What was the workaround for?

In FF I can view the script if that's what you're talking about

Tim Stone

Greasemonkey thinks that all URLs that end with user.js are userscript files and will prompt you to download them, but this makes it impossible to view the formatted scripts on Github because the the URL to the page is the same as the raw file's name.

Mark C

Ok, it did sound like there might've been a formatted version I didn't see.

Tim Stone

For example:

github.com/greasemonkey/greasemonkey/blob/master/content/…

versus

github.com/rchern/StackExchangeScripts/blob/master/…

Popular Demand

2:52 AM

I have influenced a Welbog name change! I am now an MSO C-list celebrity!

rchern

o:

Popular Demand

in Regulator Headquarters, 4 hours ago, by Popular Demand

Fallout: New Vegas, after tonight. May have to update the room name.

in Regulator Headquarters, 3 hours ago, by Toronto

I AM GOING TO HAVE SO MANY FUNS WITH THAT GAME

in Regulator Headquarters, 3 hours ago, by Toronto

I am going to kill so many innocent people.

Chacha102

Hello

I made my chat window span 2 monitors

rchern

hmm. doesn't seem like width is much of an issue

Chacha102

3:13 AM

For some reason Chrome is complaining

"Application Cache Error Event: The group has been made obsolete"

Tim Stone

@Chacha102 "The group"?

Chacha102

That was copied and pasted..

Tim Stone

Yes..

Hm, the only reference I could find to that message was in a Chromium IRC log, heh, and no one answered the person who asked..

Chacha102

I got past that

now it seems that my manifest is not able to be parsed

Application Cache Error event: Failed to parse manifest 102content.com/triton/mf.php

muhuha!

Now I just need to add some files and we're good

muhuhahahaha!

102content.com/triton is now completely fast and offline capable

Tim Stone

Nice. :D

Chacha102

3:28 AM

Now for the real test, my laptop

yep, it works

Now I have an application that it doesn't matter where you are, it always works!

This day just keeps getting better

Aiden Bell

4:16 AM

Great, I come back and it's dead

Or just quiet. :P

lol

Dead? Who's dead?

lol

Out of curiosity, report your music collection by track #

Yi Jiang

@AidenBell Too embarrassed to

Aiden Bell

4:21 AM

Me: 2967, 29 days play time 34.1.GB

@TimStone

?

Tim Stone

Err..

938, 2 days, 20 hours play time 4.44 GB

Aiden Bell

cool

Genre?

Tim Stone

There's uh, a lot of different stuff in there, heh.

Aiden Bell

►

Yi Jiang

@AidenBell Eh... I listened to it twice, and I still have no idea what I just heard

Chacha102

4:39 AM

@AidenBell Look at my app!!!

102content.com/triton

if you haven't already..

Aiden Bell

@Chacha102 saw it yesterday

how's it been goin?

Yi Jiang

4:59 AM

@rchern still there?

Tim Stone

Hmm

radp

8:07 AM

ROFL

> Google loves to characterize Android as open, and iOS and iPhone as closed. We find this a bit disingenuous and clouding the real difference between our two approaches. The first thing most of us think about when we hear the work open is Windows which is available on a variety of devices.

-- Steve Jobs

radp

8:34 AM

Java under heavy attack

Benjol

8:48 AM

@radp er, open and windows, like "open the window"?

radp

@Benjol could be... iOS doesn't have any window.

Yi Jiang

@radp I don't know, but I think the first thing that comes to my mind when the word 'Open' is mentioned in the context of software is 'Linux'.

You know, freedom of choice != actual freedom to do whatever we want with the software's source

Benjol

Steve Jobs talking about disingenuous is a bit rich

radp

@YiJiang what on Earth is that?

@YiJiang you mean there's more to it than having freedom from multitasking??

Yi Jiang

Grrr... is there a SE site where I can ask "How best to get rid of lurking mosquitoes hiding under the computer table that are biting the hell out of me?"

Benjol

9:16 AM

@YiJiang, don't you have mosquito nets over the windows over there?

Yi Jiang

@Benjol We should, but we don't

Sad but true

It's also the fog season here

Benjol

Have to make yourself some trousers out of mosquito net then :)

Or buy yourself some spiders

radp

9:41 AM

@YiJiang programmers?

Piers Myers

try eating lots of Tabasco Hot Sauce:

►

Yi Jiang

@PiersMyers Nah, the people here eat too much curry. The mosquitoes have already grown resistance.

radp

You are ruining the natural process of man and the cutting of bread.

Who would commit a crime on a Sunday?

radp

10:05 AM

Sorry, I have terrible reception here.

Pavel Shved

11:12 AM

That's just awful.

6000 people got civic duty badge (awarded for 300 votes), and only 265 of them got "Sportsmanship" badge for 100 upvotes for competing answers.

I'm ashamed of the community.

Yi Jiang

@PavelShved Wait, they implemented that already? Since when?

Hmmm... they did!

@PavelShved Truthfully speaking, that's not a very good matrix for measuring the "sportiness" of the community

I mean, by comparing badges to badges

Pavel Shved

Are there any other measures?

So far, this is the most telling one among those I've seen.

Interestingly, nearly all who possess Sportsmanship badge, have 10k+ rep

Yi Jiang

11:28 AM

@PavelShved It's not a good measure because you'd have to have a fairly large number of answers to even qualify for that badge

Measuring the absolute number of votes is far too different from that

Pavel Shved

A hundred answers is not too much, I guess.

But yes, comparison of these particular badges affects the soundness of my statements, I agree.

Yi Jiang

@PavelShved At a average of three answers per day (a rough estimate deriving from my own account) it would take 3 and a quarter months to even get to 100 answers

The suffrage badge is interesting

Pavel Shved

@YiJiang I tried picking random people from the users page. For example, this guy (stackoverflow.com/users/8206/eli-bendersky), 800+ answers, 1.5k+ votes, not a sportsman.

Yi Jiang

@PavelShved Seriously, don't bother. If you want to do some real statistical analysis you can always do it with the Data Explorer

Pavel Shved

That would take too much time :-D I can rant without statistical analysis as well :-D

Yi Jiang

11:36 AM

@PavelShved So can the rest of us! Watch as I pull some random statistics out of my... erm... never mind ;)

Pavel Shved

@YiJiang many can, but few do.

I actually love ranting while demonstrating a spurious statistical analysis... of sorts. :-)

Yi Jiang

I feel slightly sad that I've yet to earn the Suffrage badge

I feel like a Scrouge with my votes, but I can never find anything interesting enough to vote for

Even the baseline requirement of well asked well specific questions seem to be rare and far between

Ah... here comes the Apple Edition: The 21st century guide to platform trolling: Apple edition

The image is also brilliant

spoulson

12:45 PM

Morning

Benjol

morning sir (for you, anyway)

Fosco

Morning

spoulson

I hate standup meetings. Got one in 10 min and have nothing to stand up for

The sprint doesn't start for two days

Benjol

at least if it's a standup it shouldn't last too long

spoulson

I just don't feel the benefit of the stupid methodology

Benjol

12:51 PM

agile?

spoulson

Yeah. The dev phase has been over for a week, so I've been doing busy work since.

And I go in late night tomorrow for the sprint release, so I won't be coding anything legit until Thursday.

[/rant]

So I took it upon myself to fill in empty space by learning Direct 3D/C++.

And I like it

radp

Pavel Shved

@spoulson So you both rant and like at the same time?

Benjol

@spoulson, you've read Steve Yegge's rant? That'd occupy you during your standup, if not

radp

@YiJiang bah, the Apple trolling is less... inspired

The Unhandled Exception

1:08 PM

Good morning everyone

spoulson

Standup is done. Turned out to be a quick meeting and no status updates. yays

Now back to slacking off and then leaving early. Maybe this methodology isn't so bad at all.

5

The Unhandled Exception

@spoulson Haha. That must've been a relief

So I'm looking for good bike trails around where I'm staying and on one site, one trail was tagged as "Recreational, Onroad, Basic, Low traffic, High traffic, Safe, Unsafe, Urban, Rural, Scenic, Touring". WTH? Make up your mind! Is it low traffic or high traffic? And they actually tagged it "unsafe"?!?

Silly people...

spoulson

Must've been the trail the Segway guy took. And look what happened to him.

The Unhandled Exception

ROFLMAO

Fosco

1:33 PM

@TheUnhandledException Hey.. how goes it?

The Unhandled Exception

Hey @Fosco! Doing great thanks, how about yourself?

Weather's been awesome, so nice to be back at the ocean :-)

rchern

morning

The Unhandled Exception

Good morning @rchern

Fosco

@TheUnhandledException can't complain too much.. just tired and unmotivated as usual.

The Unhandled Exception

@Fosco I can relate to that, that's how I felt much of last week and the week before

@rchern How are you today?

Fosco

1:37 PM

@TheUnhandledException so you're off this week and working on XMPP?

rchern

alrighty. working from home waiting for a dishwasher install

The Unhandled Exception

@rchern That's always fuuun :-p

rchern

heh

The Unhandled Exception

@Fosco I am off this week, yes. Feels great, first real break I've had in years

You notice how I danced around the second part of your question @Fosco? ;-)

rchern

hehe

The Unhandled Exception

1:43 PM

Wednesday it may rain, so that will be a perfect day for XMPP coding

The first few days it was so nice to not be in front of a computer screen :-D

rchern

makes note of this

The Unhandled Exception

@rchern I knew you would :-)

spoulson

Morning @rchern

Fosco

@TheUnhandledException I see what you did there...

The Unhandled Exception

@Fosco Yeah, but no escaping @rchern :-)

Fosco

1:45 PM

@TheUnhandledException She's not the boss of you!

The Unhandled Exception

Apparently you've decided to re-code the entire chat as javascript addon things huh @rchern?

rchern

hahaha

The Unhandled Exception

@Fosco On chat she is -- she is the #2 user you know ;-)

But, I can always close my laptop screen and poof there goes @rchern's powers :-)

rchern

|:

Fosco

@TheUnhandledException That just means she talks too much.. shocking for a woman, I know..

rchern

1:47 PM

):

The Unhandled Exception

(Until I open it up again to se it filled with "JOSH WHERE'S MY XMPP INTEGRATION!?!?!?!?") XD

@Fosco Ahahahaha

@radp still talks more than her, what's that say about him? :-)

radp

@TheUnhandledException that say that if I don't write the activity detection in SO Live! no one will!

Fosco

He's Italian. Talking with his hands is what they do.

The Unhandled Exception

You know we're kidding, we all love you @rchern :-)

@Fosco HAHA, of course :-)

radp

and now I have to google "catching events javascript"

top hit says you do that by adding attributes to the relevant HTML entities ._.

where are the SO hits when you need them?

rchern

1:51 PM

...on SO?

radp

The UI is Google™

so I'd want window.addEventListener("blur", stop_updating) and window.addEventListener("focus", resume_updating)

Fosco

sounds good

rchern

@radp needs more jQuey.

Fosco

needs moar vapor.js

radp

0

A: Open Source Advertising - Sidebar - 2H 2010

go forth and downvote! :P

I'd have preferred a thinner font for the "logo" :|

I have a problem however

I want to register the listeners ASAP, so that it is harder for the user to leave the page "too soon"

on the other hand, if I want to be smart about it, I need to trigger the update on focus

...which makes sense unless you mousewheel through tabs like I do

...and since I'm my main customer I'll play dumb :P

balpha

2:01 PM

@radp what exactly are you trying to do?

radp

SO Live! hits the API every 60 seconds to check for rep updates -- it does so even when the tab doesn't have focus.

balpha

and you don't want this

radp

I'm just going to maintain a variable that tells me if the window has focus or not and skip updates that would happen while unfocused

however, it would have been nicer if I could trigger a missed update as soon as I tabbed back in.

It doesn't make sense for me, since I scrollwheel through tabs frequently

balpha

@radp yeah, that's how we do it in chat. note that you can't be sure until you receive the first blur or focus event

because a new tab can be created with focus on or off

radp

well, I'll have to assume I have focus to begin with

at worst it's a few extra API hits

balpha

2:04 PM

sure

so why don't you just clear your interval when the window loses focus

and reset it when it gains focus

radp

er, because this is how I schedule: setTimeout( function(){ update_reputation_since(last_update) }, 60000);

rchern

yeah, i alt-tab through windows rather frequently

Fosco

is it worth trying to stop the updates?..

balpha

how about something like this:

var timeout;
function update_rep() {
    // do stuff
    timeout = window.setTimeout(update_rep, 60000);
}
$(window).focus(function() {
    if (timeout)
        return; // already set
    timeout = window.setTimeout(update_rep, 5000) // trigger faster on window entering
});
$(window).blur(function() {
    if (timeout)
        window.clearTimeout(timeout);
    timeout = null;
});

radp

@Fosco one of my "customers", @rchern, complains she'll alt-tab back and find her rep number changed without a clue of why that happened.

@balpha it uses jquery it must be perfect

rchern

2:09 PM

pfffft, i didn't complain per se. i simply made an observation (:

radp

seriously, however, it looks reasonable :)

Fosco

is delaying the api check going to explain why the rep changes?...

I love when I visit the page and the number is higher

I check the envelope page if I'm curious where it came from

radp

@Fosco yes, because I explain why the rep changes before increasing the number

have you seen the demo?

Fosco

no..

radp

I probably ought to record it.

Fosco

2:11 PM

what if you add the top notification bars like SO does for badges, etc?

Popular Demand

@radp It must be perfect for something. Not necessarily whatever it is you're doing.

Yi Jiang

(Hits Greasemonkey repeatedly on the head with keyboard) Why won't you work!? Why? Why! Why?

Popular Demand

@YiJiang I suspect brain damage.

Yi Jiang

@PopularDemand That would explain a lot

Popular Demand

@YiJiang The animal services officers will be here shortly to question you about the keyboard-force trauma you've been inflicting to that poor monkey's brain.

radp

2:18 PM

@Fosco that's way too intrusive

SO Live Demo in action

please note all rep increase from the demo is purely virtual.

Yi Jiang

@PopularDemand I'll tell them that any userscript provider that tells me document.onload is not a valid component deserves to die

Fosco

@radp That's actually really cool (:

rchern

-------------------------------------------^ ^__^

balpha

@radp SyntaxError: Unexpected token ILLEGAL

radp

@balpha sorry, the video is not valid jQuery

$ file so_live_demo.ogv
so_live_demo.ogv: Ogg data, Skeleton v3.0

In other news, git is quite unforgiving

@balpha what did you get that error message from btw?

I originally thought it was the video telling you so, because you :replied the .ogv link but...

balpha

2:29 PM

I entered That's all folks. into the JS console; just like in the video

radp

oh :(

I guess I'll commit the video to the repo so I can reshoot it.

except github gist will hardly like that.

rchern

ya know, despite the cracks made about irc and its supposed low-life population, i get more invitations to join a random room that i can only assume is because of my gravatar than i get pm's on irc because i'm female >_<

Fosco

haha :)

balpha

what??? you're female???

rchern

broken image?

balpha

2:34 PM

not for me

rchern

and you can't say it is because people can see the picture here and just seeing rchern by itself on irc isn't "female-y" because on a couple networks my nick ends in "girl" (;

Popular Demand

@rchern That's you? I thought that was the default image!

rchern

@balpha if i click the broken image here i see

balpha

yeah, I get that too -- but the chat displays the correct image for me

Yi Jiang

balpha

2:37 PM

let's try this version:

Yi Jiang

@radp It's a lot lighter

rchern

heh

pfft.

it's annoying coming back to the computer and having more than several invitations to join rooms from random people ):

grumbles

Popular Demand

@TheUnhandledException ping

@rchern How does that even work?

Yi Jiang

Well, that's enough design work for the day... back to smashing Greasemonkey's head open with my keyboard

Popular Demand

Do you get multiple invites in one dropdown banner?

Fosco

2:39 PM

no one invites me anywhere ):

Popular Demand

Multiple layers of dropdown banner?

radp

@YiJiang noted, changing

Popular Demand

@YiJiang If you're causing the brain trauma, you can't complain about it.

Michael Mrozek

I would probably hate having lots of queued invites, but being mean to everyone has prevented that from happening

rchern

multiple banners, just like you would on the site

Popular Demand

2:40 PM

@MichaelMrozek Like you needed an excuse.

rchern

hehe

Yi Jiang

@PopularDemand Well, given how retarded it already is, I can't see it getting worse

Fosco

@MichaelMrozek lol!

Michael Mrozek

@PopularDemand Misanthropy to the degree I have requires considerable effort

Fosco

@MichaelMrozek have you heard of / read the Acts of Gord?.. www.actsofgord.com

mmyers

2:43 PM

I just got the Sportsmanship badge on SO and saw a question about the Suffrage badge on Meta. When did those come about and are there any other new ones?

Popular Demand

@mmyers Today, and no.

rchern

@mmyers, good timing. blog entry just posted about it (:

Yi Jiang

@mmyers Those are user suggest badges from the badge suggestion question

Popular Demand

11

Q: List of all badges with full descriptions

There have been many questions requesting more information about particular badges or groups of badges. This question is intended to be a community-edited list of all the badges with all relevant information, including but not limited to level (bronze/silver/gold) awardability (just once/multip...

The Unhandled Exception

@PopularDemand pong

Sorry, was AFK, eating breakfast on the balcony

mmyers

2:44 PM

@rchern Indeed.

Popular Demand

@TheUnhandledException Argh, I just closed the tab I was keeping open for you, one sec.

The Unhandled Exception

@PopularDemand heh, sorry :-/

Popular Demand

@TheUnhandledException Well look at you, Mr. Fancy Balcony Owner.

3

Q: Can bounties be awarded after expiration?

At this question I was able to award the bounty 25 minutes after it expired. Unfortunately I forgot to screenshot this, there was a message like "This question had a bounty ... that has expired 25 min ago", but the award bounty icon was clickable and so I did successfully. Is this a bug or the an...