[aerogear-dev] my AeroGear notes

Wed Jun 5 02:28:08 EDT 2013

Hello Yavuz,

thanks for the interest in AeroGear and sharing your feedback with our
community!

We are for sure interested in how we can improve the experience. We really
appreciate your comments!

A few comments in-line!

On Wed, Jun 5, 2013 at 12:04 AM, Yavuz Selim YILMAZ <yavuzsel at buffalo.edu>wrote:

> Hi All,
>
> I am trying out the AeroGear libraries to get a sense of them. As a newbie
> to the libraries, I took some notes about my first experience, and would
> like to share my notes with you. Comments, directions and suggestions are
> most welcome.
>
>
> General:
>
> - It's not clear if I can use the client libraries with my own server
> side, or if I can use the AeroGear controller without using the client
> libraries.
>
So, my initial thought was, I definitely need the AeroGear controller to
> integrate my AeroGear powered client app with my RESTful backend.
>

As you (probably) noticed, they can be used individually.   Do you think we
should phrase that different on the side, or in the docs ?

> - Maybe it is because the external libraries/tools used in the
> documentation apps releases new versions so fast, but getting the example
> app from github, running it on my machine and then modifying the app to
> play with it was harder than creating a new app and using AeroGear libs in
> them directly.
>

That's an interesting comment. You are basically say the demos apps where
broken? Or update too often ? If the too often, please have in mind that we
are early stage, and that things are changing on a fast pace

>
>
> iOS:
>
> - iOS API Cookbook is a really nice doc to get to know about how to use
> AeroGear iOS API.
> - It is not clear enough how the backend side should be designed to work
> with client libraries, and this is problem if you start using AeroGear with
> client side libraries (a mobile developer will probably start so, like I
> did).
>

The backend should be pretty independent. For iOS, we do have integration
tests against different cloud services (not only against our backend):
- World Of Warcraft:
https://github.com/aerogear/aerogear-ios-integration/blob/master/AeroGear-iOS-Integration/AeroGear-iOS-IntegrationTests/WorldOfWarcraft_PipeTests.m
- Github's GIST API:
https://github.com/aerogear/aerogear-ios-integration/blob/master/AeroGear-iOS-Integration/AeroGear-iOS-IntegrationTests/AGPagingWebLinking_GitHub.m
- Twitter's Search:
https://github.com/aerogear/aerogear-ios-integration/blob/master/AeroGear-iOS-Integration/AeroGear-iOS-IntegrationTests/AGPagingBody_Twitter.m

We do not even know what they used for writing these backends. Do you think
the different client libs should state more clearly that they can be
used independently?

> If an iOS developer wants to use the library, she should go through
> AeroGear Controller docs to know how the server side should be. And here
> "AeroGear Controller User Guide" is not enough to figure the things out.
> Therefore, one needs to go through aerogear-controller-demo on github to
> understand the details (e.g. after struggling with how the server side APIs
> should be, it turned out that REST API itself was what i was looking for -
> so easy if it was stated clearly [see general section above for why I find
> this difficult]).
>

Looks like the controller guide needs some improvements? Or being more
clearly on the REST API (which is what you really need). Feel free to
suggest changes to our docs! We are more than happy to improve, especially
based on user feedback

> - xCode template is a really nice start, as it makes getting the first app
> running quick. But template creates a part of todo app which doesn't have
> authentication and therefore the app isn't functional.
>

I am sorry to hear, but that has been changed recently - So I guess you are
a "victim" of this fast pace here. Have a look at the template's "login
code":
https://github.com/aerogear/aerogear-ios-xcode-template/blob/master/AeroGear/Application.xctemplate/ViewController.m#L26-L44

>
>
> Android:
>
> - Unlike iOS development, developing Android apps and compiling them has
> many different alternatives. But as a maintainer of Android, Google puts
> Eclipse + ADT option in the first place. So, I think at least there should
> be an option for AeroGear to use it with Eclipse + ADT setup.
>

You mean integrated into the Eclipse Tooling? We do have guides for Eclipse
for instance:
http://aerogear.org/docs/guides/aerogear-android/

> Especially using community tools to build is initially harder for newbies
> (e.g. I tried to get maven running on eclipse using m2eclipse, and todo app
> does not compile on my eclipse while it does on terminal). Some bugs and
> configuration changes in maven, maven-android, android-sdk-deployer and
> m2eclipse slowed down the initial steps, i.e. it was not as quick and
> straightforward as AeroGear iOS API to get the first app running.
>

Is that because on the documentation ?

> - Sending query parameters to server side is slightly different on iOS and
> Android (or maybe I couldn't find the same way, but Android sends where
> clause as JSON object, while iOS sends key-value pairs as HTTP GET query
> parameters). So, I needed to update my server side (which i developed for
> iOS) to use it for Android (or I could build my where clause in iOS
> manually).
>

in iOS the idea was to have a generic "parameter provider", since the
"where" is pretty much dependent on the server. So configure your own
"params and their values" was the idea behind in iOS. I think that the
"where" is gone (or going away) in Android land as well

>
>
> HTML5:
>
> - As AeroGear.js uses AJAX to connect to the backend, and in my case (also
> I believe in most cases) as my RESTful endpoint was not residing on the
> same host with my app, I needed to use jsonp data type, which requires
> different response format. Therefore I needed to update my server side
> (again - it was designed for iOS and updated for Android).
>

CORS support is available in the AG-js library, but yeah that's something
your backend needs to "setup" as well.

> - When I create a pipe, I specify the baseURL and my endpoint, but I
> needed to specify the data type when I was actually reading from the pipe.
> I felt like if I know what my endpoint returns in terms of its data and
> application type, then I should be able to set data type while creating my
> pipe.
> - Although documentation is not complete yet, AeroGear.js file is well
> commented (going through the comments, it's easy to understand what and how
> to do).
>
>
> Hybrid with Cordova:
>
> - The documentation for converting HTML5 + REST apps to Hybrid apps uses
> some directory names (e.g. "ios") which causes confusion (when I read, I
> got confused about whether the directory named "ios" is what I can choose
> its name or it is something Cordova or Xcode creates and so it is a
> required name or directory in all apps).
>

Cordova names their supported platforms that way (ios, android) - we can
not do much about this, also I think it does make sense (since they
generate the bindings and abstraction for that particular platform (e.g.
iOS or Android or whatnot :))

> - HTML5 documentation and example app employs modernizr for feature
> detection (mobile or desktop) and to load appropriate libraries
> accordingly. However, modernizr does not load fast in hybrid app (though
> hybrid app is for sure mobile, I first kept all the implementation as it is
> to make it "implement once and use for all builds -HTML5, iOS hybrid and
> Android hybrid-", but it didn't work). After removing modernizr from HTML5
> implementation and loading only mobile libs, it required no more effort to
> make html5 app hybrid (it just did work).
>

You are talking about the Kitchensink example, right ? I think that is
generally a bit older now... I will have Luke/Kris comment on the future
directions there :-)

>
> I also have a question, and your answers and/or directions are appreciated
> in advance.
>
> - For now, I created some simple REST API's in PHP to try the mobile side
> libs.
>

that's perfectly ok!

> What is your recommendation of building server side (which uses existing
> database let's say) if it is going to be used with AeroGear? I mean, is it
> OK to go with PHP to provide REST API,
>

if your backend devs are PHP guys -> go that route

> and then add another layer using AeroGear controller? Or should I go with
> Java implementation from the start?
>

Not needed. If you feel comfortable with Java, feel free to use the
AG-Controller or straight JAX-RS. It's up to you. See the integration test
examples I shared above: We basically have no details about the backened -
we just leverage their REST APIs

> So, to restate and simplify: my AeroGear controller needs to connect to an
> existing LDAP instance. What's the AeroGear recommended approach for this?
>

Good question :-) Do you mind starting a new thread for the LDAP connection
issue?

>
>
> Thanks for your time to read (and respond). Cheers,
>

Yavuz, thanks again for trying AeroGear and giving such a detailed
analysis! We truly appreciate it!! I hope some given answers make sense.
Let us know if you need more, or feel free to suggest improvements.

Thanks!!!
-Matthias

>
> ---
> Yavuz Selim Yilmaz
> SUNY at Buffalo
> Computer Science and Engineering
> PhD Candidate
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> aerogear-dev mailing list
> aerogear-dev at lists.jboss.org
> https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/aerogear-dev
>

-- 
Matthias Wessendorf

blog: http://matthiaswessendorf.wordpress.com/
sessions: http://www.slideshare.net/mwessendorf
twitter: http://twitter.com/mwessendorf
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.jboss.org/pipermail/aerogear-dev/attachments/20130605/2c688458/attachment.html 