Strider 2.0 Brainstorming

[knownasilya]

Just putting this out there, want to list out some of the "must have"s and "nice to have"s for 2.0.

Must Haves

• Add support for organizations (groups)
• On-boarding (setup) UI / Post setup Initial setup (db, email, admin, etc) #681
• Multiple build environments
• Simultaneous builds
• Upgrade to latest Express (4 atm)
• Use express.Router() throughout to decouple routes
• Upgrade to latest Bootstrap (3 atm) / Cleanup responsive UI
• Remove deprecated APIs
• Update plugin API, no globals
• Bring back strider.json as a build config strider.json support #674
• Make into an SPA
• Upgrade to consistent (one) view templating e.g. Handlebars Use one templating library #689

Nice To Haves

• Refresh the website
• Abstract database calls
• Features behind flags / Faster release cycles

Feel free to disagree, and contribute! Discussion welcome!

[knownasilya]

One that I wont put up there, just because it's too controversial, is to rewrite the client-side with Ember.js. Especially with how angular is going and the spaghetti code that we have (even after browserify), it would really help bring in new contributors from the Ember community, since they'll be able to jump in very easily.

[knownasilya]

Here's a good question:

Would it be easier to start from scratch, with what we learned, and to write it from the ground up (feels like that would be better) or to refactor and hope that we don't introduce many new bugs?

Since we have some fundamental changes that have been requested, and plenty of code that is just not up to par.

[bitwit]

Would certainly love to help where I can with UI/webapp tasks and any testing assistance.

So I've got to ask about this Angular vs. Ember thing:

• What are some of the difficulties you are experiencing with UI development?
• What would Ember accomplish that Angular can't?
• Is the spaghetti code a result of Angular's design or the Strider application design/modularity?

[jaredly]

I'd support Ember over Angular. Especially in a large app like this, Ember's conventions get you a lot of benefits.

[vsukhomlinov]

I think that build configuration should be stored along with projects instead of the DB. So I'm suggesting to make Strider build git projects having strider.yml file without making any further configurations

[knownasilya]

Please expound on this feature request. Are you saying they can have
strider config that lets strider know how to build it? So minimal
configuration needed for setup, only adding the repo?
On Dec 9, 2014 6:01 PM, "Vitaly Sukhomlinov" notifications@github.com
wrote:

I think that build configuration should be stored along with projects
instead of the DB. So I'm suggesting to make Strider build git projects
having strider.yml file without making any further configurations

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub
#667 (comment).

[vsukhomlinov]

Correct, I'm seeing a value in doing that if you're planning to add access for organizations.

[bitwit]

On the topic of a config file, there was recently a little discussion on this here #592 .

According to @niallo 's comment there is already support for a strider.json or ini file but it is completely undocumented.

[knownasilya]

@bitwit

What are some of the difficulties you are experiencing with UI development?

Javascript in HTML, which basically is the same thing that we as the web development community have been trying to minimize since the days of the dominance of PHP. Not only is this hard to debug, read, and keep dry, but it's also hard to extend and expand.

What would Ember accomplish that Angular can't?

Ember is great for large applications that need to scale and grow. Making it an SPA is perfect for Strider, since it'll have a slightly longer load in the beginning, and then be lightning fast. Ember has nice conventions and really the best router, which is an absolute necessity for web apps. Ember Data, is amazing, and will totally fit the way strider is organized, providing nice abstractions. This will allow for making the backend a REST API that can serve multiple front ends. Also ember-cli and the build/addon system, which is super!

Is the spaghetti code a result of Angular's design or the Strider application design/modularity?

Both, since Angular doesn't portray any conventions that everyone should follow, it lends itself to being used poorly.

[knownasilya]

@vsukhomlinov added that to must haves.

[bitwit]

@knownasilya Great answer! That gives some interesting food for thought on why Ember is possibly a better MVW framework for open source projects -> Conventions! It's also probably the best anti-Angular argument I've heard lately among all the FUD that seems to be trending lately :)

I'll admit I've seen some lack of convention in Strider's plugin controller implementations. When working on the plugin template, I had to review a lot of plugins to try and extract what seemed like the ideal standard to build upon. The dependence on the plugin controller's $scope already having object's like config attached via a parent $scope also seemed a bit counterintuitive.

A few debatable pros and cons of switching:

big pro - Conventions. Great for getting all open source contributors working in better alignment.
pro - Other abstractions that are part of Ember that are not in core Angular e.g. Ember Data
con - I believe Angular is a more widely known framework, which is also useful for open source. Currently Strider is a pure MEAN stack application. MEEN is phonetically the same though :D
con - Guaranteed there would be no backward compatibility with 1.x plugins

Could probably flesh this out more

[bitwit]

On another subject - I think community support for Strider needs improvement too, i.e. a better place than IRC to tell people where to direct questions. Possibly creating a forum or using Stack Overflow with a #strider tag to follow. I think in IRC sometimes no one is really around and questions get lost.

There was a great discussion recently about improving the docs and linking directly to them from within the webapp ui - I think this is a great direction too

[knownasilya]

What about using gitter? https://gitter.im/ along with an SO bot for IRC
Also we could use discourse as a forum, so something like discuss.strider.com

And yes, the wiki docs are a good idea!