With the move from SproutCore 2.0 to EmberJS there was the namespace and Github repo migration. Core things seem to have moved to the http://github.com/emberjs organization Github account while there are some others that seem to have been moved to the "addons" account http://github.com/emberjs-addons.
I am currently investigating EmberJS for use with a RESTful server, serving up JSON.
My question is: Do I use the new http://github.com/emberjs/data code or the older http://github.com/emberjs-addons/sproutcore-datastore code? I would assume the former but I would just like to be sure as well as get some clarification on what is going on with the old SproutCore "addons".
The emberjs-addons are ports from the old sproutcore ecosystem. They are not modified and it looks like they are not receiving much attention from the emberjs core-team. They are concentrating on the new "emberjs-data". However, the old datastore is production proven and the modified version does work fine with the current emberjs relase (0.9.3).
In contrast, while the rewritten version looks really nice, it is explicitly stated in the projects readme that it is not considered "production ready", yet.
Which one should you choose? In my opinion that depends on your project. If you are looking for something stable or you want to put your app in production any time soon, I would give the "old" sproutcore datastore a go. On the other hand, if you are just starting with your project use the new and shiny "emberjs-data" but be warned that you might have to fight around some edges.
I have been using ember-models with my own REST adapter while I am waiting for the ember-models one to be completed. git://github.com/ebryn/ember-model.git
Related
There are two main schools of thought for doing A/B (Split) Testing:
Javascript-based solutions such as Optimizely, Google Analytics Content Experiments.
Server-side solutions such as Django-AB, Splango, and django-lean. (Also, writing your own.)
My understanding is that Javascript-based solutions are spectacular for "which color button converts better," but not so great for switching out entire page layouts, and completely unworkable for trying out large functional changes such as the sequence of pages in a funnel.
That leads me towards a server-side solution. I'm not crazy about coding my own, and will do so only if there is no other option. I'm trying to add value by improving the core functionality of my site, not by creating a better split-testing framework.
The Django apps I've found for split testing are various mixtures of unmaintained, undocumented, documented incorrectly, and incompatible with Django 1.5. This surprises me, because the Django and Python communities seem to have a strong focus on good documentation. I'm also very surprised that none of the testing frameworks I've tried has been compatible with Django 1.5 -- is testing not as core a part of the philosophy in the Django/Python world as it is in Rails?
Here's what I've found:
Splango https://github.com/shimon/Splango -- Not compatible with Django 1.5 (although most compatibility bugs I found were trivial to fix). Largely un-touched since October 2010, except for a fix August 2012 which claims to make sure templates get included in the install. Since templates don't get included in the install when Splango is installed via PyPI, either the fix didn't work or didn't get submitted to PyPI. Documentation is largely accurate, but doesn't completely cover how to set up tests and get reports. It tells you how to configure the template to gather the data, but there appears to be additional steps required in the admin interface which are completely undocumented, and I'm not sure I've done them properly.
Django-lean. Original at https://bitbucket.org/akoha/django-lean has not been updated since July 2010. There is an apparently "blessed" fork at https://github.com/anandhenry2002/django-lean which has not been changed since May 2012, when it was copied over from the original. The original's documentation is incorrect in ways that make following the examples impossible. (Though you can probably muddle your way through, as I did.) The new version's documentation has formatting problems that make it difficult to read on github. (This appears to be because it's the unchanged documentation from the old project, and BitBucket syntax doesn't work on Github.) The django-lean Google Group has not had a message since July 2012.
django-mini-lean https://github.com/DanAncona/django-mini-lean -- Updated as recently as February 2013, but undocumented.
Leaner - https://bitbucket.org/brianjinwright/leaner -- Last updated July 2012, and no docs.
Django-AB -- Last updated May 2009. Is not a package, and can't be installed via PIP or PyPI. After placing the checkout in my django app folder (and renaming the folder to ab) and following the installation instructions, I get an error loading the template loader that I have not tracked down further.
So far Splango appears to be the winner, as I've actually been able to get it more-or-less working (by manually installing the templates, and then editing them to fix Django 1.5 incompatibilities).
Can anyone point me to anything I've missed?
You have missed this app : https://github.com/mixcloud/django-experiments + https://github.com/disqus/gargoyle/
And then there's waffle: http://waffle.readthedocs.org/
It's simple, updated, maintained, but not very feature rich, it doesn't have any analytics/reporting stuff integrated. But then again, google analytics or mixpanel type of service is better for this.
I first looked at Django-AB and that is almost what I wanted, but I couldn't get it to work either. After looking at django-experiments and deciding I didn't want to mess around with redis yet, I decided to roll my own. I've tried to package it up nicely and make it easy to use for the beginner. It's super basic.
https://github.com/crobertsbmw/RobertsAB
You can swap out entirely different page layouts with Google Analytics Experiments (their default experiment setup will redirect users to a different URL for each variation you have), although in general its much easier to interpret why something is more successful if you test smaller things against each other.
You are right that testing different funnels and user flows against each other using Google Analytics would require a lot of manual setup; although theoretically you could do it by swapping out different links and tracking your users with UTM campaigns.
For smaller A/B tests within the same page, I ended up using Google Analytics Experiments and writing a custom Django CMS plugin for adding a few variant options to a template, which queries the Google Analytics API and displays the correct variant using Javascript.
I hate to ask such a newbie and vague question, but I imagine there must be others out there whose brains are also about to explode. I see related questions, but none that directly addresses my confusion.
I've just been introduced to Ember.js and I'm trying to learn the basics of the Router, but I can't find two sources that agree on how this is done. I suspect that I'm jumping in during an unstable transition. I'm using the latest 1.0.0-Pre.4 release.
The best I can figure, Router is the new mechanism, and possibly replaces StateManager - yes? Yet the classes listed under 1.0.0-Pre.4 API on the web site don't even list a Router object, nor does the guide make mention of it... yet, I get no complaints from javascript when I use sample code that extends Em.Router.
Ok cool, however it then barfs on the Router member "transitionTo" which is present in many of the demo projects, but is unrecognized in the current release.
So, I guess what I'm asking is not so much a direct question, as I am looking for a grounding point in a sea of contradictory information.
If starting out with Ember.js as it is RIGHT NOW (1.0.0-pre.4), with no history to contend with, what routing mechanism should I be looking at, and is there any tutorial or simple sample app that demonstrates and runs against this version of the library? Can you confirm my suspicion that the documentation is out-of-date in regard to routing?
Ember.js is a lot to learn, and if I ever hope to figure it out, I need to know what to ignore and what to embrace.
Thank you.
The best I can figure, Router is the new mechanism, and possibly replaces StateManager - yes?
Yes, Router is the new mechanism. It does not replace StateManager per-se. Early version of the Ember Router were based on StateManager. The new one (1.0.0-pre.4) is not, but StateManager is still an important part of the ember library. Many of ember's core components (models, views) rely are built on StateManager.
Yet the classes listed under 1.0.0-Pre.4 API on the web site don't even list a Router object, nor does the guide make mention of it... yet, I get no complaints from javascript when I use sample code that extends Em.Router.
The Router does not have API docs yet. I imagine these are in the works. When in doubt about a fast-moving open source project I always have a look at the tests. Ember has a really solid test suite, and in the case of routing you can learn a lot by reading through the integration tests here: routing/basic_test.js
Ok cool, however it then barfs on the Router member "transitionTo" which is present in many of the demo projects, but is unrecognized in the current release.
Sounds like those demo projects are out of date.
Can you confirm my suspicion that the documentation is out-of-date in regard to routing?
Re: the official docs I think both the API and Guides can be considered current, but be aware that not every ember feature has API docs so far. For sure there are many out-of-date sources floating around. Trek has been working to compile a list of out-of-date sources so that we can reach out to authors for a refresh. Here on Stack Overflow, anything related to the old router should now be tagged https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/ember-old-router.
If starting out with Ember.js as it is RIGHT NOW (1.0.0-pre.4), with no history to contend with, what routing mechanism should I be looking at, and is there any tutorial or simple sample app that demonstrates and runs against this version of the library?
The ember team has been putting a lot of effort over the past few months into the Ember.js Guides - AFAIK they are all up to date WRT (1.0.0-pre.4) and are becoming more solid every day. They include a lot of detail about the new Router - see Ember.js - Routing for the most up-to-date information.
As for tutorials, there are several new ones that are worth a look. Check out this SO post for a few recommendations: Could someone point me to an ember.js project that uses the latest routing system? Bonus points if it uses ember-data as well
tip: build your own version of ember from master branch - they fixed few bugs :)
Just in my reading over the last few days I've found at least three different extensions offering data store support for Ember: ember-data, sproutcore-datastore, ember-ezdata, and I think I might be missing one.
This range of options gives rise to several questions.
Obviously ember-data is the "official" extension, but it's also pretty heavily fenced with qualifications ("This isn't ready for production") from the core team.
How should I compare and evaluate these options?
In the SproutCore 1.x series, development was usually done with fixtures, and the data source wired in later. Can any of these options support that sort of workflow? Can I load some production data this way (might change with release versions, but not user-editable) and other data from my back-end data source?
ETA: Here's a related question.
Personally, I'm expecting big things from ember-data, but it does seem to have a little way to go to be "production ready".
When I started using Ember, the ember-data project had just begun, so I decided to create a simple persistence layer of my own. I ended up with ember-rest, which is a pretty thin layer over jQuery.ajax(). You can see it in use in this Rails example. By the way, you can load JSON data directly into ember-rest without hooking into a backend.
I'm under the impression that sproutcore-datastore is no longer maintained. I've never tried ember-ezdata.
Another worthwhile option to check out is ember-resource.
I hope this is enough to get you started.
Is there any guidance on how to write modular Ember.js apps? I have seen Tom Dale's position on AMD here so I am not going to force fit AMD on to the framework (as some have attempted here). It appears that Ember internally uses bpm/spade. Is that a reasonable approach to modularize Ember apps too? Any samples using this approach?
P.S. The getbpm.org site seems to be down which makes it difficult to learn about it. There is a github page but it refers to the site for install instructions.
BPM in it's current form is no longer supported by the core team, but is community supported. The only build tools they are officially providing support for is rake-pipeline. However, BPM does still work and it works well (I still use it with my projects). For info on how to use it see this: https://github.com/ud3323/bpm/wiki/Using-BPM-with-Ember. You may want to use my fork of bpm too. I've merged in Joe West's support for a proxy middleware.
There is also community build tools for node.js called ember-runner which looks promising as well.
As for using rake-pipeline. Look at the AssetFile on the emberjs projects to see how must be configured using rake-pipeline and rake-pipeline-web-filters. Also, take a look at the answers to this question on StackOverflow (especially Yehuda's). You may also find this gist helpful as well.
Try Ember App Kit - maybe it would help you.
I have played a bit with Rails, so for me, creating a rails 3.2 app was the easiest way to achieve this. So if you don't mind using rails as a back-end, I this might suit you.
Perhaps ember-tools could help:
https://github.com/rpflorence/ember-tools
I am novice still I found yeoman and ember-generator useful. In future you might need to add tests , mock rest calls you can easily npm install sinonjs and npm install ic-ajax
Let me first say I am aware of this faq for Mach-II, which discusses using application specific mappings as a third option when:
locating the framework in the server root is not possible and
creating a server wide mapping to the Mach-II framework directory is impossible
Using application specific mappings would also work for other ColdFusion frameworks with similar requirements (ColdSpring). Here is my issue however: my (I should say "their") production servers are all running ColdFusion MX7, and application specific mappings were introduced in ColdFusion 8. I most likely will be unable to do option 1 or 2 because they involve creating server wide changes that could conflict with other applications (I don't have a final word on this but I am preparing for that to be the case).
That said, is there anybody out there who was in similar bind and has done an option 4, in any ColdFusion version, or with any similar framework? The only option 4 I can think of is modifying the entire framework to change this hardcoded path, and even if that worked it would be time consuming and risky. I'm fairly sure that if there was a simple modification or other simple solution it would already be included in the framework (maybe it's included in version 1.8 of Mach-II and I don't know about it yet).
Any thoughts on solving this problem or even unorthodox setups with libraries that have specific path requirements would be appreciated. Any thoughts from Team Mach-II would especially appreciated...we're on the same team here Matt! ;-)
EDIT
Apparently, the ColdBox framework includes a refactor.xml ANT task which includes a target that refactors the ColdBox code to use a different absolute path as a base along with several other useful refactoring targets. So problem solved for ColdBox users.
Looking at the build.xml for Mach-II (1.6 and 1.8) I don't see any target in there that would allow me to refactor the code. I thought about creating a feature request ticket for such a task for Mach-II but frankly I don't think creating such an ANT task is a big priority for the MachII team since the need really only relates to either
a) users of ColdFusion versions below 8
b) someone who wants to use multiple Mach-II versions in the same application, a use I doubt they want to support
The ColdSpring code I have doesn't come with any ANT tasks at all, although I do have unit tests, and I bet if I poked around the SVN I'd find a few build scripts.
Using Ant tasks to refactor and retest the code, or the simpler (and sort of cop out) solution of creating a separate ColdFusion instance for the application are the best answers I've been able to come up with. I don't need this application to exist in the shared scope of other applications, so my first solution is going to be to try and get a dedicated CF instance for this application.
I'm also going to look at the ColdBox refactor.xml ANT task however and see if I can modify it to work generically to recognize and refactor CFC references with modified absolute paths. If I complete this task I'll be sure to post the code somewhere and edit create an answer to link to it. If anybody else wants to take a crack at that or help me out with it feel free.
Until then I'll leave this question open and see if someone comes up with a better solution.
Fusebox is not so strict, I think.
In XML mode (maybe I call this not 100% correcly, just mean using the Application.cfm) it's just proper include in index.cfm, something like:
<cfinclude template="fusebox5/fusebox5.cfm" />
In non-XML mode it will need proper extending in the root Application.cfc:
<cfcomponent extends="path.to.fusebox5.Application" output="false">
All you need is to know the path.
Perhaps you could create a symbolic link and let the operating system resolve the issue for you?
I've been playing with FW/1 lately, and while it may look like you need to add a mapping and extend org.corfield.framework, you can actually move the framework.cfc file into your web root and just extend="framework". It's dead simple, and gets you straight into a great framework with no mess and very little overhead.
It should be as simple as dropping the 'MachII' folder at the root of your domain (i.e. example.com/MachII). No mappings are required to use Mach-II if you just deploy at the root of the domain of your website.
Also:
Please file a ticket for the ANT task you mentioned in your question. Team Mach-II would love to have this issue logged:
Enter a new ticket on the Mach-II Trac
If you want to tackle an ANT task for us, we can get stuff like this incorporated into the builds faster than waiting to for a Team member to work on the ticket. Code submissions from the community are welcome and appreciated.
We don't keep an eye on Stack Overflow very often so we invite you to join our official community group at called "Mach-II for ColdFusion" at Google Groups. The Google Group is the best place to ask questions or comments like this if you want feedback from the Team.