

Flatironjs: an unobtrusive framework initiative for node.js - bmaeser
http://flatironjs.org/

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AlexC04
I'd like a simpler explanation of how it all works. With colorful flow charts
and graphs.

I'm really interested in how it compares to what express does. How is it the
same, how different? _However_ since I'm reading this from the office between
doing _actual work_ I've not got time to read this version.

I may or may not remember to come back and check it out after work.

Anyways, all of that is intended as a round of constructive criticism. At the
end of the day, it is what it is.

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akavlie
If you want colorful flow charts, there are plenty at the "Isomorphic" link:

<http://blog.nodejitsu.com/scaling-isomorphic-javascript-code>

The proposed Resource-View-Presenter model is a bit of a brain bender.

Anyway, that aside, I agree -- this is described as a framework "initiative",
and that page has no links to actual code, making it sound like a mere
proposal.

However, looking back at Nodejitsu's blog, it looks like they have a post with
a more cogent explanation... and github links:

<http://blog.nodejitsu.com/introducing-flatiron>

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AlexC04
Thanks so much for this! The graphs are exactly the kind of "conceptual flow"
I like to have to give me a 1000 meter view of what's going on.

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jsight
I found the layout of the website extremely obtrusive. I'd have preferred a
much more basic layout, without so much fixed text/graphics.

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munaf
Agreed. I'd prefer to discuss the pros/cons of the framework, but honestly the
content on the left was enough to make me stop reading. It's unfortunately
very common to miss out on interesting content because of UI pickiness.

~~~
lclarkmichalek
There was a link posted on reddit about this framework, however it linked to a
nodejitsu blog post, and iirc, nodejitsu links cannot be submitted to
hackernews.

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jokull
github link? Some radical ideas in this framework! Quite close to what I've
predicted in the merging of frontend and backend frameworks (think Brunch with
backend DOM awareness). EDIT: [github
link](<https://github.com/flatiron/flatiron>)

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funthree
Speaking of backend DOM awareness, have you seen this?
<https://github.com/tblobaum/nodeQuery>

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jokull
Seems like quite a feat has been accomplished. But it also feels like it was
simply done for the sake of it, instead of creating a framework that addresses
real problems. Will have a close look however, correct me if my 2 second
impression is completely off.

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maratd
> instead of creating a framework that addresses real problems.

If you need to protect code that is currently client-side while retaining
responsiveness, this will solve that problem.

In my opinion, the price for that is too high. You are significantly
increasing the traffic between the server and the client. On top of that, you
are forced to do all your work on the server, which to me feels like a step
back to the way we used to do things a decade ago. Beefy servers handling a
few clients, rather than light servers handling thousands of clients.

~~~
funthree
Without going into too much detail about it your assumption is only partly
true. It depends on how many API calls you make to jquery from the server, but
also sending your realtime data in HTML actually doesnt suck (your server
already renders html like this for http requests) and you also dont have to
serve up any client-side assets -- the total number of KB transferred is
likely to be less with nodequery even after x amount of time on the site
because you keep everything but arbitrary strings of HTML on the server.

You could make a 10,000 loc app, and you wouldnt even have to serve up a line
of it to run it (in realtime) with a browser.

EDIT: After looking through Flatiron/Plates, I'm really interested in seeing
how I might be able to get them to work together.

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maratd
> your server already renders html like this for http requests

This hasn't been the case for me for literally years. Everything is pretty
much dynamically loaded into the DOM by javascript. The server just pushes raw
data to the client via XHR.

If you're still rendering HTML on the server, then yeah, this would be a
drastic improvement. Absolutely.

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franze
unobtrusive framework is an oxymoron

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jonpaul
Awesome! I had a similar on building something like this. One thing is for
certain, members of the community lean more towards a simplistic, minimal, and
clean toolset. Express.js delivers, and this seems to as well.

I've dedicated myself completely to Node.js for the last month, and I'm sold!

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netghost
I see a list of libraries, but no links. Where's the source, the docs, etc?

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netlemurde
<https://github.com/flatiron>

