Re: [android-developers] Re: Poll: how many of you use a backend service or roll your own
On Fri, Feb 3, 2012 at 1:22 AM, Todd Grigsby tgrigsby...@gmail.com wrote: RPC and REST are both used to implement Web services, and that's where the semantic similarities end. I only brought it up because Amazon touts DynamoDB as REST, but it's anything but. I find it aggravating when some noob creates a Web service and slaps a REST label on it because he read an article about it, but doesn't understand what it means. Even worse, Amazon does have experience creating actual REST services, so you would think someone there would have stopped the announcement and corrected the online docs and marketing blurbs. That's obviously a pretty impassioned response.. I don't think it's quite that far, since I generally think of RPC -- in it's general form -- as doing something sufficiently high level to abstract away the differences between the protocols. Here, I'm talking about any general utility that lets you interface between systems written in very different ways.. I'd agree with your sentiment of REST being used as a buzzword, but I'm not sure you can say that they have nothing in common except both being used in web services. (I guess now that I think about it more, however, REST does feel much less than the typical things I see in RC, but all he necessary requirements to implement the traditional stuff are there, there's nothing lacking in inherent expressivity, though I suppose this is like saying the differences between Haskell and the lambda calculus isn't that much..) kris -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
Re: [android-developers] Re: Poll: how many of you use a backend service or roll your own
On Fri, Feb 3, 2012 at 8:53 AM, Kristopher Micinski krismicin...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Feb 3, 2012 at 1:22 AM, Todd Grigsby tgrigsby...@gmail.com wrote: RPC and REST are both used to implement Web services, and that's where the semantic similarities end. I only brought it up because Amazon touts DynamoDB as REST, but it's anything but. I find it aggravating when some noob creates a Web service and slaps a REST label on it because he read an article about it, but doesn't understand what it means. Even worse, Amazon does have experience creating actual REST services, so you would think someone there would have stopped the announcement and corrected the online docs and marketing blurbs. That's obviously a pretty impassioned response.. I don't think it's quite that far, since I generally think of RPC -- in it's general form -- as doing something sufficiently high level to abstract away the differences between the protocols. Here, I'm talking about any general utility that lets you interface between systems written in very different ways.. I'd agree with your sentiment of REST being used as a buzzword, but I'm not sure you can say that they have nothing in common except both being used in web services. (I guess now that I think about it more, however, REST does feel much less than the typical things I see in RC, but all he necessary requirements to implement the traditional stuff are there, there's nothing lacking in inherent expressivity, though I suppose this is like saying the differences between Haskell and the lambda calculus isn't that much..) kris To update, however, I'm expecting you'll write back a response beating down my viewpoints of this idea, as many REST people seem to have a pretty heated opinion on this point, that's fine. I wasn't viewing this in a very implementation minded way, and I'd prefer not to argue about it.. kris -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
[android-developers] Re: Poll: how many of you use a backend service or roll your own
I use QuickBase in one instance and Pachube in another. It's nice to use a back end that comes with a pre-built application-specific schema and there are quite a number of them out there for media, documents, collaboration, gaming, GIS, and so on. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
Re: [android-developers] Re: Poll: how many of you use a backend service or roll your own
RPC and REST are both used to implement Web services, and that's where the semantic similarities end. I only brought it up because Amazon touts DynamoDB as REST, but it's anything but. I find it aggravating when some noob creates a Web service and slaps a REST label on it because he read an article about it, but doesn't understand what it means. Even worse, Amazon does have experience creating actual REST services, so you would think someone there would have stopped the announcement and corrected the online docs and marketing blurbs. Man, I gotta cut back on the caffeine... Okay, back to Android... On Feb 1, 2012 8:39 AM, Kristopher Micinski krismicin...@gmail.com wrote: On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 10:47 AM, Todd Grigsby tgrigsby...@gmail.com wrote: just to throw in my 2 cents: DynamoDB is not restful. it's RPC. Yup! But you can think of RPC and rest doing something similarly semantically. This isn't to say they're in any way technologically similar, there are clear reasons why both exist.. It was worth noting, however. kris -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
Re: [android-developers] Re: Poll: how many of you use a backend service or roll your own
On Fri, Feb 3, 2012 at 3:22 PM, Todd Grigsby tgrigsby...@gmail.com wrote: RPC and REST are both used to implement Web services, and that's where the semantic similarities end. I only brought it up because Amazon touts DynamoDB as REST, but it's anything but. At least the docs don't say it's REST, but some marketing pages might, especially since REST and NoSQL are all the rage these days. IIRC, it uses POST for pretty much anything, and it looks more like SOAP with JSON instead of XML. It is indeed uglish to say the least, but my point was that you can use it directly over HTTP, without needing to write your own frontend. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
Re: [android-developers] Re: Poll: how many of you use a backend service or roll your own
just to throw in my 2 cents: DynamoDB is not restful. it's RPC. On Jan 29, 2012 9:25 PM, Kristopher Micinski krismicin...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Jan 29, 2012 at 10:45 PM, Nikolay Elenkov nikolay.elen...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 11:46 AM, Kristopher Micinski krismicin...@gmail.com wrote: Right, right. I don't think that this is extremely Android specific, but I think that Android apps are much more likely to do restful communication with a backend than standard apps. Maybe this hasn't been your experience, but it's been mine. (And that could just be because of the types of apps I write.) Thanks for your input, though, I do suspect that major apps all roll their own. Far from being major, but I use my own, running on App Engine. Not really a problem, just some extra work. Authentication can be tricky though, if you don't want to use Google accounts (which is easy, but a lot of people freak out when they see account related permissions on an app). If you only wanted to store files/unstructured data, using the Google Cloud storage (Google's S3) would probably be the easiest solution, no need for a dedicated frontend. Hey, thanks for telling me this! I had never known of that perception before, and it's really good feedback! Amazon makes it fairly easy to use their services (S3, DynamoDB, etc), but you need to running a server just to get authentication tokens (Token Vending Machine), which is a pain (and potentially expensive). For example, you can store data directly in their DynamoDB, without needing to roll your own REST frontend: http://aws.amazon.com/articles/7439603059327617 Cool! Thanks for the links, I had heard of these before, but I hadn't investigated them too much. TVM: http://aws.amazon.com/articles/4611615499399490 Thanks, And then there is https://www.parse.com/ which reportedly takes care of all this stuff for you, but I haven't actually used it. I keep wanting to use it to see what their service is like, so I signed up and am going to try it out for a while.. kris -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
Re: [android-developers] Re: Poll: how many of you use a backend service or roll your own
On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 10:47 AM, Todd Grigsby tgrigsby...@gmail.com wrote: just to throw in my 2 cents: DynamoDB is not restful. it's RPC. Yup! But you can think of RPC and rest doing something similarly semantically. This isn't to say they're in any way technologically similar, there are clear reasons why both exist.. It was worth noting, however. kris -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
[android-developers] Re: Poll: how many of you use a backend service or roll your own
Probably every major app that requires backend support will have created their own backend and protocol for interacting with it. It's not a problem, it's just work. I solve it just like I would any Java app that has Apache HTTPClient available. In fact, my Java code for dealing with backend stuff is pure java that I can use in any Java context, given HTTPClient and other pure java libs as infrastructure. The only extra stuff I have to do in the Android side is use loaders and some special configuration. Doug On Jan 28, 4:31 pm, Kristopher Micinski krismicin...@gmail.com wrote: All, This is to you developers who want to backend communication in your apps. This need pops up naturally in many apps because there just isn't any other way to do it. (For example, file exchange, syncs with a server, etc..) Right now I think that there are a few up and coming libraries and backend services, but my guess is that many of you roll your own backends using rest and json. It feels to me like this probably causes a lot of people problems, because there interface between your app and your backend isn't really baked in to the semantics of the programming language or Android platform, so you have to develop the protocol and follow your nose while debugging to get it right. Do people run into this problem, or is it in practice a nonissue because you test it once and it's obviously right? (Same question for security!) kris -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
Re: [android-developers] Re: Poll: how many of you use a backend service or roll your own
On Sun, Jan 29, 2012 at 9:43 PM, Doug beafd...@gmail.com wrote: Probably every major app that requires backend support will have created their own backend and protocol for interacting with it. It's not a problem, it's just work. I solve it just like I would any Java app that has Apache HTTPClient available. In fact, my Java code for dealing with backend stuff is pure java that I can use in any Java context, given HTTPClient and other pure java libs as infrastructure. The only extra stuff I have to do in the Android side is use loaders and some special configuration. Doug Right, right. I don't think that this is extremely Android specific, but I think that Android apps are much more likely to do restful communication with a backend than standard apps. Maybe this hasn't been your experience, but it's been mine. (And that could just be because of the types of apps I write.) Thanks for your input, though, I do suspect that major apps all roll their own. kris -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
Re: [android-developers] Re: Poll: how many of you use a backend service or roll your own
On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 11:46 AM, Kristopher Micinski krismicin...@gmail.com wrote: Right, right. I don't think that this is extremely Android specific, but I think that Android apps are much more likely to do restful communication with a backend than standard apps. Maybe this hasn't been your experience, but it's been mine. (And that could just be because of the types of apps I write.) Thanks for your input, though, I do suspect that major apps all roll their own. Far from being major, but I use my own, running on App Engine. Not really a problem, just some extra work. Authentication can be tricky though, if you don't want to use Google accounts (which is easy, but a lot of people freak out when they see account related permissions on an app). If you only wanted to store files/unstructured data, using the Google Cloud storage (Google's S3) would probably be the easiest solution, no need for a dedicated frontend. Amazon makes it fairly easy to use their services (S3, DynamoDB, etc), but you need to running a server just to get authentication tokens (Token Vending Machine), which is a pain (and potentially expensive). For example, you can store data directly in their DynamoDB, without needing to roll your own REST frontend: http://aws.amazon.com/articles/7439603059327617 TVM: http://aws.amazon.com/articles/4611615499399490 And then there is https://www.parse.com/ which reportedly takes care of all this stuff for you, but I haven't actually used it. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
Re: [android-developers] Re: Poll: how many of you use a backend service or roll your own
On Sun, Jan 29, 2012 at 10:45 PM, Nikolay Elenkov nikolay.elen...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 11:46 AM, Kristopher Micinski krismicin...@gmail.com wrote: Right, right. I don't think that this is extremely Android specific, but I think that Android apps are much more likely to do restful communication with a backend than standard apps. Maybe this hasn't been your experience, but it's been mine. (And that could just be because of the types of apps I write.) Thanks for your input, though, I do suspect that major apps all roll their own. Far from being major, but I use my own, running on App Engine. Not really a problem, just some extra work. Authentication can be tricky though, if you don't want to use Google accounts (which is easy, but a lot of people freak out when they see account related permissions on an app). If you only wanted to store files/unstructured data, using the Google Cloud storage (Google's S3) would probably be the easiest solution, no need for a dedicated frontend. Hey, thanks for telling me this! I had never known of that perception before, and it's really good feedback! Amazon makes it fairly easy to use their services (S3, DynamoDB, etc), but you need to running a server just to get authentication tokens (Token Vending Machine), which is a pain (and potentially expensive). For example, you can store data directly in their DynamoDB, without needing to roll your own REST frontend: http://aws.amazon.com/articles/7439603059327617 Cool! Thanks for the links, I had heard of these before, but I hadn't investigated them too much. TVM: http://aws.amazon.com/articles/4611615499399490 Thanks, And then there is https://www.parse.com/ which reportedly takes care of all this stuff for you, but I haven't actually used it. I keep wanting to use it to see what their service is like, so I signed up and am going to try it out for a while.. kris -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
