Non RESTful Rails app with JS framework

Question

I just started working on an app originally created with rails 1.x which has later been migrated to 2.1. My client wants me to do a total redesign of the ui and add some functionality.

Now I'm thinking about creating a js app that only uses the legacy system as an api and thus decouple the app so that in the future it will be easier to rewrite the app in a more modern way. The app is non-RESTful which makes me wonder how it will work with the modern frameworks out there like Backbone, Ember, Batman etc. Is there any framework that would be more preferable?

Cory Loken · Accepted Answer · 2012-10-01 21:48:11Z

1

I just finished a project with a very similar situation and decided to build it with Ember.js. I chose this direction because I like all the great things you get with view layer bindings, the simple observables, and the community (which plays a big part for me as there are some great frameworks out there with a dead community and it is hard to find help or bounce ideas off of people).

To deal with the non-standard backend I started with just having my controllers handle all the data requests to the server using jQuery (which is part of ember) and then manipulated the data client side to meet my applications needs. As things got more complex I jump over to ember data (which is still a work in progress) and created my own adapter. I chose to make this change as I plan on updating the backend to be more restful and then all I should have to do is swap out my custom adapter with the ember rest adapter.

answered Oct 1, 2012 at 21:48

Cory Loken

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2 Comments

samuel02 Over a year ago

The problem is ember-data is not production ready which makes it scary to use.. Also I need something that I can rely on for some time.

Cory Loken Over a year ago

Yeah, that is why I mentioned it is a work in progress, although I use it in a few production applications. If your application doesn't require a lot of complex relations starting with the basic ajax/jquery connector is a good approach. This article is fairly old and was talking about SproutCore 2.0, but it may be helpful to look at for a starting point. I used it to get my first ajax app off the ground. SproutCore Ajax

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