Client-side or server-side framework?

Question

My project would be a kind of craiglist, a site where users could post anouncements (evereday-life objects, cars, flat etc.). So, authentication, profile page, content creation, display the for-sale objects etc.

I have developed a very large part of the backend: I have a RESTful API in three-tier architecture developed in java. It makes the link with the db, to provide me with different urls and send me the relevant JSON.

URLs example:

http://api.mywebsite.fr/user?userid=1 sends me back:

{"user": {"username": "jdoe1234", "email", "jdoe1234@gmail.com"}}

I have urls for all actions performed on the entire site (anouncement creation, last data updates ... everything, and I've carefully declared them POST, GET, UPDATE, DELETE, etc.). There is also oAuth to protect the API from queries that are not allowed for the token.

That's all for the "server" aspect, I think that there is no problem with that.

But if all the actions are managed by the webservice, I do not see the interest that could bring me a big server-side framework like Symfony/cakePHP, Zend, etc., to make HTTP requests on my different entry points, retrieve JSON and populate the HTML.

So I looked at client framework, like Angular, Ember and so on. At first, it seemed very suitable for my case: possibility of http requests, manage what to do in case of success or error, directly exploit the resulting JSON to populate the view etc.

I didn't even manage to make my choice between angularjs and Ember, both being very similar, but with the release of Angular v2, I fear the maintainability of v1 (if I choose Angular, it will be v1 , because the majority of tutorials and questions relate to Angular 1.X).

I don't know if I'm doing the right thing by choosing client-side framework, I am afraid that they 'brident' (not sure of that word, sorry) me. Plus, it's fully instantiated in the browser, so the user can change absolutely all code and data I provide. That seems weird to me.

I want to be absolutely sure of the technology that I use in case I make this application available to the public for example. I want to do things properly, in order to avoid maintainability or security problems.

Summary: With the things I already have (webservice / api), is it a good idea to use a client framework like Angular or should I stay on big server-side framework like Symfony/Zend etc? Knowing that I position myself in the context in which this platform would be massively used (craiglist comparable traffic).

Answer 1

I'd say - depends whether you want to be more frontend guy or backend guy in future. If you want to be full stack developer then it doesn't apply.

In my opinion, both Symfony/Zend or other big server-side frameworks aren't so exciting as dynamic frontend JavaScript frameworks like Ember/Angular/React.

Also, if you have already RESTful API and OAuth authentication implemented in backend part I'd go with Ember. Why? Ember Data is great tool for talking to backend API. It's mature, it lazily loads records when they're needed and it's very customizable.

it's fully instantiated in the browser,so the user can change absolutely all code and data I provide...

Ember has built in security like sanitizing data which is rendered in it's templating language - HTMLBars. Also, there's CORS and content security policy (CSP) standard which is implemented in Ember.

I want to be absolutely sure of the technology that I use in case I make this application available to the public for example. I want to do things properly, in order to avoid maintainability or security problems .

In Ember you can create mature, secure, production-ready applications, but you need to comfortable with your Ember skills to some degree to build such ambitious web application, but it's part of building every application.

With the things that i already have(webservice / api), is it a good idea to use a client framework like Angular?

Yes, it's very popular solution to use MEAN stack or go with Ember + RESTful API.

Why should I choose Ember instead of Angular (which have a larger community/tutorials/answered questions) ?

Angular has larger community/tutorials/answered questions, but when I started some side project with Angular to learn its possible advantages over Ember, I was surprised how there was no consensus in it's community for doing one thing. So, instead of fast search how to declare and use directives (I think it was the thing that confused me) I have to do another research which way is the best. Also, there are lots of ways to setup project (where to put custom directives, different Angular objects) and you have to do another research which one to choose. I ended up using repo healthy-gulp-angular as my template, but you can see it hasn't been updated for 8 months, but I think during these 8 months Angular had a lot of changes and I'm not sure if this repo is the best choice.

In Ember you have Ember CLI tool which is built with Convention over Configuration principle. You have also Ember Data which utilizes JSON API standard - if you don't have JSON API compliant server side right now, you can write custom adapter to normalize server responses or change how backend replies. In Ember you don't have all that headache and different best solutions to do 1 basic thing depending who you ask.

What means "Single page application" ?

Single-page application is basically a page which doesn't have to reload all assets and HTML when you navigate. It's advantage over PHP - when user moves to another location he downloads only new data for that route. More info here.

Does those frameworks allow me to create real routes ? ( www.myapp/profil/userid etc )

Yes, of course. You don't even need # in your URL. With simple rewrite rule and small amount of logic for profile route and specified path profile/:userid , when user will open URL www.myapp/profile/userid he will be automatically taken to profile route, and userid would be interpreted as route parameter, so you can take this userid and find user record from the store in model hook.

Answer 2

Client = speed, Server = stability

JS frameworks updates once per week Non-Js back-end once per year

Client side depends to behavior depending on browser Back is related only on machine but not on environment

I chose FE coz I tired to debug code by writing variables values to database to actually see what is going on in controllers -_-