Sorry, mistakenly pressed "Send" button before I finish typing :-).
On Tue, Feb 7, 2017 at 11:01 AM, Amila Jayasekara <thejaka.am...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi Marcus, > > Nice summary of requirements. > > Some questions inline. > > On Fri, Feb 3, 2017 at 4:31 PM, Christie, Marcus Aaron <machr...@iu.edu> > wrote: > >> Dev, >> >> I’ve been taking feedback from other Airavata developers and working on >> requirements for a next generation architecture for the PGA. First I’ll >> list out the requirements as I see them. Then I will propose what I feel is >> a best fit for these requirements. Feedback on all of this is much >> appreciated. >> >> >> Requirements >> >> The following is a list of problems we would like to solve by adopting a >> new web framework. A new web framework here means both the backend >> framework for server side code as well as the frontend framework for client >> side code. >> > > I am little confused about the overall organization of the PGA. Isnt > backend means Airavata ? (sorry i am outdated on most of the things). > > >> >> 1. Have the ability to independently add new views to the portal. >> Framework should have some concept of modularity so new functionality can >> be added without having to make changes to other parts of the portal. This >> would facilitate new features moving into production faster. >> >> 2. Have the ability to make calls to Identity Server (SOAP) and Airavata >> (Thrift). Would be good if there is support for interacting with other >> remote computing protocols and HPC resources. >> > I was under the impression that IS has a REST interface also. Anyhow I am not sure about this. Also, what you meant by "support for interacting with other remote computing protocols and HPC resources" ? Can you give few examples ? IMO, if Portal need any information from the HPC resource it should go through Airavata for security reasons and also for communication reasons. If resource host a web server to extract information, it is find get information directly from resource (without going through Airavata) > >> 3. Be themable/skinnable and modular. Gateways should be able to >> customize the look and feel and make the portal their own. Gateways should >> be able to customize the functionality available in the portal, removing >> and adding just the functionality tailored for that specific gateway. >> >> 4. The backend framework should support different modes of web >> development: server-side rendered views as well as REST API for client side >> views. >> >> 5. The backend framework should be able to easily integrate with existing >> scientific codes for visualization and analysis. This would allow >> developing lightweight domain specific functionality within the portal >> itself. >> >> 6. The backend and frontend frameworks should have active communities and >> some longevity, helping to ensure continued support in the future. >> >> 7. The backend and frontend frameworks should have a gentle learning >> curve to promote onboarding new contributors. Setting up a local >> development environment should be relatively easy. >> >> 8. The frontend framework should allow the development of more >> sophisticated client side views: >> • Domain specific and interactive views for configuring >> applications and viewing results >> • Domain specific and interactive views for browsing, filtering >> and managing remote and personal data collections >> • More up front validation of application configurations >> >> >> >> Proposed solution >> >> With these requirements I feel like Django as a backend framework and >> React as a frontend framework are the best fit. Here are the benefits I see >> of adopting Django: >> * Django has a builtin concept of modularity, the application [1]. This >> would allow the independent development of new views for new funtionality >> (req 1) as well as making it possible to tailor a portal to a gateway’s >> needs (req 3). >> * Django has a very active community and lots of off the shelf >> applications [2] that can be used to either quickly develop common portal >> functionality or to add gateway specific features >> * Being written in Python means that the backend can easily integrate >> with Python scientific codes for quick data analysis and visualization tasks >> * A side benefit of a Python based portal is the opportunity to develop a >> first class Airavata client in Python. This could enable scripts to take >> advantage of the Airavata API or Juptyer like interactions with the API. >> * Django is well-documented and relatively straightforward to work with, >> easing on-boarding of new developers >> >> Regarding React, I see these benefits: >> * React is a much more powerful and scalable approach to web UI >> development than just using jQuery, which is what the current PGA uses. >> With React we can build UIs with a higher degree of interactivity. And we >> can build richer, more domain-specific interfaces. >> * Unlike other JS frameworks that have a very large API to learn, the >> concepts and API surface of React is fairly small. The main challenge is >> learning to “think in React” [3] >> >> Again, feedback on this is much appreciated. >> > Its kind of hard to evaluate any product without actually prototyping. Django seems promising. However, I found this [4], on Django. Not sure whether those are really valid arguments. Thanks -Thejaka > >> >> Thanks, >> >> Marcus >> >> [1] https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.10/ref/applications/ >> [2] https://djangopackages.org/ >> [3] https://facebook.github.io/react/docs/thinking-in-react.html > > > [4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4076834
