Using Backbone.js with a RESTful Java Back-End

January 10, 2012 By 4 Comments

In a previous post, RESTful services with jQuery and Java using JAX-RS and Jersey, I demonstrated how to build a RESTful API using JAX-RS and Jersey, and how to build a jQuery application that leverages that API. The application used as an example was a Wine Cellar management application.

In follow-up posts, “Backbone.js Wine Cellar Tutorial” (part1, part 2, part 3), I showed how to add structure to the client-side of the Wine Cellar application using Backbone.js. But that three-part tutorial was provided with a PHP back-end.

By popular demand, here is a version of the Backbone.js Wine Cellar application powered by a Java / JAX-RS back-end using Jersey. The server-side of the application provides an example of building a complete RESTful API in Java using the different HTTP methods:
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Filed Under: Backbone.js, Java, JavaScript, JAX-RS, JQuery

Setting Up WordPress on Amazon EC2 in 5 minutes

January 5, 2012 By 7 Comments

Step 1: Create an AWS Account

First things first: you need to create your AWS account. You can sign up here. You’ll have to provide a credit card and a phone number where you will be called as part of the online registration process for verification purposes. Amazon offers a Free Usage Tier, which is great to explore the services and even host real apps without being charged. Check the details here.
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Filed Under: Amazon EC2, Cloud, WordPress

Tutorial: HTML Templates with Mustache.js

December 20, 2011 By 5 Comments

}

When developing modern HTML applications, you often write a lot of HTML fragments programmatically. You concatenate HTML tags and dynamic data, and insert the resulting UI markup into the DOM. Here is a random code example of this approach:

$.each(messages.reverse(), function(index, message) {
	$('#messageList').append(
		'<li><span class="list-title">' +
		message.userName + '</span>' +
		'<abbr class="list-timestamp" title="' +
		message.datePosted + '"></abbr>' +
		'<p class="list-text">' + message.messageText + '</p></li>');
	}
});

The proliferation of this kind of code throughout your application comes with some downsides. The tight coupling of UI and data logic doesn’t promote separation of concerns and reuse. It makes your application harder to write and harder to maintain.
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Filed Under: HTML 5, JavaScript, JQuery, Mustache.js, Tutorial

Fact Check Michele Bachmann with Politifact and Flex

December 16, 2011 By 1 Comment

During the GOP presidential debate last night, Michelle Bachmann said this:

After the debate that we had last week, Politifact came out and said that everything I said was true.

Did Politifact really give her a “True” rating across the board for a performance in the previous debate?

The best way to check if you are on the go, is to use Politifact’s mobile application which was built with Flex and runs on the iPhone, the iPad, the BlackBerry PlayBook, the Kindle Fire, the Barnes and Noble Nook, and other Android devices… using the exact same code. 100% code reusability.
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Filed Under: Flex

Mobile Development with Flex 4.6 and Spring

December 9, 2011 By 7 Comments

My Mobile Development with Flex 4.6 and Spring video (using the Spring BlazeDS Integration project) is available on Adobe TV. You can watch it here.

The Flex Spring Mobile Test Drive is hosted on GitHub and documented here.

Filed Under: Flex

Backbone.js Wine Cellar Tutorial — Part 3: Deep Linking and Application States

December 8, 2011 By 7 Comments

In Part 1 of this tutorial, we set up the basic infrastructure for the Wine Cellar application. In Part 2, we added the ability to create, update, and delete (CRUD) wines.

There are a few remaining issues in the application. They are all related to “deep linking”. The application needs to continuously keep its URL in sync with its current state. This allows you to grab the URL from the address bar at any point in time during the course of the application, and re-use or share it to go back to the exact same state.

In this last installment of the tutorial, we add support for deep linking in the Wine Cellar application.
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Filed Under: Backbone.js, JQuery, REST

Backbone.js Wine Cellar Tutorial — Part 2: CRUD

December 7, 2011 By 4 Comments

In Part 1 of this tutorial, we set up the basic infrastructure for the Wine Cellar application. The application so far is read-only: it allows you to retrieve a list of wines, and display the details of the wine you select.

In this second installment, we will add the ability to create, update, and delete (CRUD) wines.

RESTful Services

As mentioned in Part 1, Backbone.js provides a natural and elegant integration with RESTful services. If your back-end data is exposed through a pure RESTful API, retrieving (GET), creating (POST), updating (PUT), and deleting (DELETE) models is incredibly easy using the Backbone.js simple Model API.

This tutorial uses pure RESTful services. The services are implemented as follows:

HTTP Method URL Action
GET /api/wines Retrieve all wines
GET /api/wines/10 Retrieve wine with id == 10
POST /api/wines Add a new wine
PUT /api/wines/10 Update wine with id == 10
DELETE /api/wines/10 Delete wine with id == 10

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Filed Under: Backbone.js, REST

Backbone.js Wine Cellar Tutorial — Part 1: Getting Started

December 6, 2011 By 25 Comments

One of the challenges when building nontrivial Web applications is that JavaScript’s non-directive nature can initially lead to a lack of structure in your code, or in other words, a lack of… backbone. JavaScript is often written as a litany of free-hanging and unrelated blocks of code, and it doesn’t take long before it becomes hard to make sense of the logic and organization of your own code.

Backbone.js is a lightweight framework that addresses this issue by adding structure to JavaScript-heavy Web applications.
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Filed Under: Backbone.js, JQuery, REST

RESTful services with jQuery, PHP and the Slim Framework

December 1, 2011 By 18 Comments

NOTE: This is the PHP version of this article and its companion app. A Java version is available here.

I have been looking for a lightweight framework to build a RESTful API in PHP. There are a number of good options out there: Slim, Epiphany, Tonic, Recess, and Frapi to name a few. They all seem like good frameworks. In the end, I chose Slim for this project for two main reasons:

  1. It’s very lightweight and focused on REST and nothing else.
  2. It supports all the HTTP methods (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE), which was a key requirement for my application.

This article (and its companion app) provides an example of building a complete RESTful API using the different HTTP methods:

  • GET to retrieve and search data
  • POST to add data
  • PUT to update data
  • DELETE to delete data

The application used as an example for this article is a Wine Cellar app. You can search for wines, add a wine to your cellar, update and delete wines.


You can run the application here. The create/update/delete features are disabled in this online version. Use the link at the bottom of this post to download a fully enabled version.
[Read more...]

Filed Under: JQuery, PHP, REST

RESTful services with jQuery and Java using JAX-RS and Jersey

December 1, 2011 By 7 Comments

NOTE: This is the Java version of this article and its companion app. A PHP version is available here.

This is a more in depth version of my previous post on the same topic. The previous article only covered the HTTP GET method for building RESTful services. This article (and its new companion app) provides an example of building a complete RESTful API using the different HTTP methods:

  • GET to retrieve and search data
  • POST to add data
  • PUT to update data
  • DELETE to delete data

The application used as an example for this article is a Wine Cellar app. You can search for wines, add a wine to your cellar, update and delete wines.


You can run the application here. The create/update/delete features are disabled in this online version. Use the link at the bottom of this post to download a fully enabled version.
[Read more...]

Filed Under: Java, JAX-RS, JQuery, REST
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