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Part III in a series of articles about an online web app/service I am working on.

I've happily reached a significant milestone in the development of my project, finishing a foundational layer that by itself could be valid to open source at some point.

Also:

• In my last post I explained my reasons for passing on the current crop of JavaScript frameworks. This is a decision that I've been extremely pleased with, as I've managed to conceive/implement my own MVC/MVVM pattern for the project and because it's pushed me much further into my JavaScript education.
• I have refactored the codebase from using 100% jQuery to about 80% raw JavaScript to 20% jQuery. It is nice to be able to know how to step outside of jQuery and/or deepen one's appreciation for what jQuery is doing under the hood. Also, if you've spent any time on jsperf.com at all you probably know that jQuery is much slower than raw JavaScript for many things. When building an almost-entirely client-side app, speed starts to matter much more than when you have just a couple jQuery snippets on a page, and I want this app to be whip quick. It was a little ackward getting started with plain JS, but once underway I caught the hang of it fairly quickly, and the end result I'm definitely happy with.
• Currently, I am using localStorage for my data store, and it's been working great for development purposes - it's basically a mock mongoDB for me (I'm storing nested objects in localStorage using a small jQuery library called jStorage). I'm purposely putting off the server side of this application because I want to be able to use the Symfony 2.3 LTS release, which is scheduled for May as middleware between the client-side and mongoDB. The temptation to use node.js is strong, and arguably would be the most performant option, but the reasons for picking Symfony are probably obvious to any Drupal developer.
• Finally, don't forget - if you are using regex to parse the DOM, you're doing it brain-meltingly wrong!

Cheers all, I'm off to DrupalCamp Sacramento for the weekend.

Part II in a series of articles about an online web application I am working on. Read Part I

I'm am currently in the process of making my own web service, which will have a single-page-app (SPA) type of structure/interface. This is exactly the type of project that the bevy of JavaScript frameworks like Backbone.js, Angularjs, Ember.js, Knockout.js, and Meteor are build for, thus I've taken it for granted that I would use one of these frameworks as the client-side infrastructure for my app. After much review and fiddling around it turns out that I will not be using one of them. At least not for now. Below are some of reasons why (note these reasons may not apply to you, you may rightly decide that a Javascript framework is a great choice for your project(s) - these are one person's opinions only):

Using any of the frameworks requires more commitment from my code base than I want to give right now

One of my biggest surprises/disappointments after spending a lot of time with Backbone.js and Angularjs was realizing that my (imho) perfectly awesome JavaScript/jQuery foundation layer, which I just slaved over creating, would not only have to be modified - it would have to be thrown out the window. This is because none of these frameworks are a container for your JavaScript - they are a replacement for it. Sure you might use a little bit of JavaScript/jQuery within any one of the frameworks, but overall you'll be doing-Backbone, or doing-Angular, or doing-Ember, or whatever. It's even common advice for Angular experts to tell newbies to not use jQuery at all while they are getting started, so that they can learn the 'Angular way'. Thanks, but no thanks.

"A Side Project" is a series of articles about an online web application I am working on. In Part 1 I share some of the thoughts and motivations which brought me to starting this project in the first place.

The seed for what is new, has some old roots
In 2005 I became involved with Drupal after discovering it in the course of working on an ambitious side project of mine. It was a discovery that would change my life, professionally and otherwise, much for the better. Ironically, the very thing, which got me into Drupal in the first place (e.g., online side projects) had became one of the unfortunate casualties in more recent years as my professional Drupal activities increased. Sure, I had little projects - went to meetups, cons, made some patches here, contributed this there - but building my own online site/service from the ground up with the intention/hope of achieving something big, that went by the wayside.

So you have a virtualhost set up for Apache and your local site is running at http://yoursite.local and everything is working great on your computer. Now you want to test that awesome responsive design you've been working on with some other device(s), so you try to go to yoursite.local which won't work unless you want to modify the host file on the device(s), which is something you can't even do to an iPhone/iPad without jailbreaking it. Gah.

So, then you try to access the site with your device by just using your computer's IP address + the path to your docroot (for instance 10.0.1.10/mysite/trunk/htdocs/) - great idea and now the site at least sort of loads, but all the links to the CSS/JS and image files are broken...

In my own search to avoid jailbreaking I finally figured out how to enable normal-looking-pages access to devices following a bit of trial and error. The whole setup to enable this is done on the computer your site exists on - no need to fiddle with any of your other device(s) settings:

A few months ago I set up Varnish on my Macbook Pro and have deployed it for a production site which serves anonymous and (a lot of) authenticated users. Initially, I spent a couple months just running it in my local environment, including backporting the Varnish.module to Drupal 5. In retrospect, I'm glad that I spent the time to learn how Varnish and it's configuration file works before deploying it, as it's paid off in a big way as our production site now has something which is equivalent to:

• ...an in-memory static file server for all users (e.g., the equivalent of hooking up something like nginx or lighttpd as a front end to Apache (or whatever you're using).
• ...an in-memory boost.module in terms of database-relief for anonymous users.

Contrary to popular belief the two items above are in no way an automatic benefit of simply installing Varnish. If the configuration file, and Drupal installation, is not massaged with care one definitely won't get the database relief from anonymous page caching, and the benefits from Varnish-as-a-static-file server will not nearly be optimized. Bottom line Varnish can be a temperamental piece of software. It only gives back what you put into it.

To this end, the settings in the Varnish VCL file can make or break whether you get a substantial benefit from it. Below is an example VCL file, which was formed from a good amount of research and a lot of trial and error:

Drupalcon San Francisco was great. Here is some of what stood out to me, in no particular order:

• Tim O'Reilly's keynote was great (see link for it in comments). It put perspective on where Drupal fits into the larger world and reminded me that I actually came to Drupal for a reason, not just for technology or Drupal itself. While listening to the keynote, I couldn't help but think that Dries' personal push for RDF in core (which I've seen some head-scratching about from some) might owe part of its genesis to his own talks with O'Reilly.
• The presentation YOU SHALL NOT PASS: Managing Expectations and Boundaries of Clients is one of the hidden gems of Drupalcon. If you're not project managing your clients/work the way they describe, you're doing it wrong (or at least for less money, more aggravation, and less satisfaction!).
• Larry Garfield's session Objectifying PHP was a wonderful session for anyone who is ready to move to the next level with object oriented methods (pun intended) and practices.
• The money, as well as the number of people, and type of people involved with Drupal these days has definitely changed the feel of the conference as compared to earlier ones I've attended. This is true even comparing it to DC which was only last year, let alone the first one I went to 4 years ago (OSCMS). There is no good or bad implied here, just worth noting since it has implications (and things will likely continue in this direction for a while).
• For the past year or so it's been cliche to say, 'No one person one can know everything about Drupal anymore'. For me the new saying is, 'No one person would even *want* to know everything about Drupal anymore'. There are vast, vast knowledge areas within Drupal that have their own following, experts, and activity levels. Don't get me wrong, it's *all* extremely interesting, but gazooks...
• For now videos/screencasts for presentations (they don't all seem to have them) can be found by going to this page and clicking through to the individual presentation page you're interested in. UPDATE: Videos posted here too.
• Hottest Drupal-related career: Project/QA manager. The need for developers and themers, is plenty hot of course, but I'd be willing to bet that at least some of the larger Drupal-based companies/shops would choose a competent project/QA manager over a competent developer if forced to choose only one.
• The way Drupal 7's $page array, hook_page_alter, and drupal_render works, simultaneously makes me want to use Drupal 7 RIGHT DARN NOW, as well as makes me wonder just how horrifically these features will be abused. (who needs a custom theme anymore - Garland with a bunch of hook_page_alters should work just fine, right) ;)
• If you want the sneak peak for the next North American Drupalcon, look no further.

If you have a highlight you'd like to share please leave a comment.