I'm using Azure for the first time and wanting to make a very simple RESTful API, but trying to follow the example using Swagger.io feels like a lot of work for what I want to achieve. Is there a way to just write Java code for JAX-RX without going through the Swagger.io generator process?
Service description stating that you can bring your API as is:
Bring your existing API as-is - You don't have to change any of the
code in your existing APIs to take advantage of API Apps -- just
deploy your code to an API app. Your API can use any language or
framework supported by App Service, including ASP.NET and C#, Java,
PHP, Node.js, and Python.
Swagger support facilitate ease of consumption, since you able to auto generate client sdks in various languages based on swagger spec. Nothing prevent you not having swagger and still use service.
Related
tl;dr: Is Spring + Django back-end possible?
When I was new to industry and was still working my way around the office, I got interested in Django and created a very small, basic-level application using the framework. When I got to meet my team after a few weeks, they said to go for Spring framework. After spending half a year on the framework and the main proj, I finally started to get time to start working off-hours. But, I don't want to lose both the skills - My teammate(when we were still in office ;) ) once told me that they worked on a project that started with python code, and then later added features using Java. And I am unable to find any helpful google searches(mostly showing Spring vs Django).
How should I go about it? Is it too much to ask for? Is it worthwhile? Will I learn some new concepts of application architecture a noob like me would have missed. Please provide me with some insight.
Are there resources(docs) I can go through?
P.S. I'm not a diehard fan of either of the frameworks right now, just another coder testing waters.
You can't write java in python.
You can extend Python with C/C++ which is quite common: Extending Python with C or C++
And about the part that they told that they added features with java:
It's common to create different parts of a project using different languages and tools. Microservice architecture is a common architecture for these kinds of use cases. You basically code different parts of the project in a language you want and then you connect all the parts using different methods like REST APIs, gRPC and etc.
Imagine you are creating a website like youtube that lets others upload videos. There is a form that users upload their files and you store them in your storage and then you have to encode the video file for different qualities. You can code the form handler using Python and Django to store the files in your storage. Then you can code another service using java that handles the encoding part which is a heavy process. When an upload is completed, you send the file or file path to your java service using an internal REST API and tell the service to start encoding the video and notify the Django service and then the Django service will publish the video on the feed that can itself be written in another language.
I would say go for 1 framework and stick with it. For example Django if you want to code in python, and spring if you want to code in java. Learning both frameworks however brings a lot of value, because you can compare their benefits (eg. spring forces you to write clean code, django has build-in and simpler database management)
I like Django's build-in tooling a lot, you only need to know python for it to work. Spring requires a bit more knowledge of eg. hibernate for database management. However I predict Django will outgrow spring at some point, because of cloud valuing fast iteration over code and quick startup time (auto-scaling apps) over large overhead apps and long boot times. Hoever, if you like java, I can recommend JHipster for java/spring webapp development to get up to speed very fast and learning the ways of REST CRUD api fast.
To combine 2 programs: write your main logic in one app, and write a small service in the second language, making sure its independent of the first app (no back and forth communication and complicated logic, but simple independent request/response, as if the main app was never there). Add a REST api to the second app and use eg. http requests to communicate.
What's possible in terms of combining languages:
connect different applications with each other: by letting them communicate through their APIs. For example a python api developed with flask or django can send requests to a java api developed with spring, as long as they have a way to communicate (eg over http, or via some queue like rabbitmq)
connect a webapp to 2 different backends: by using a shared authentication system: For example a keycloak authentication server to handle tokens, that your backend applications know about.
What's not possible (and also not preferable):
combining java with python code in the same program: there are some hacky ways to get it to work, but its asking for trouble and not readable.
My company currently has a Java project that allows us to run jobs to process data. The current project has a web interface, but its rather old, and most of the web interface is implemented through Java Servlets by printing HTML out to the web browser.
We want to instead create a REST API using the same core process, and replace the web interface with a different implementation in the future. Then eventually, we may have customers use the REST API.
My question is this: I understand NodeJS is pretty powerful, and from what I've read, makes the most sense when developing a REST API with the JavaScript and JSON integration. Should I attempt to create the REST API with Java, and if so, should I use JavaEE and Glass Fish, or should I have the API be built with NodeJS, then have the NodeJS server call the core Java service to process the requests?
I understand I may be introducing unnecessary complexity, however the project is rather large, and it won't be feasible to port the project over to NodeJS. I don't have experience with REST API creation (or SOAP), so this is new territory for me.
Thanks for the help,
Colby
Your aim is to create REST API so that your customer could use the API.
For this you can use :
NodeJS to create all your complete application code and Rest API.
There are plenty of
Java is good to create Rest API. You can use JEE and server you are comfortable with. For example, GlassFish.
My suggestions : Use Java because your current application is on Java. You could save time because working on same language. You already have skills in Java languages. You can use Spring framework ( Spring MVC, Spring Security and Spring Boot). Theses frameworks offer some great features and are simple to learn.
Since your current application is already in Java, based on Servlets, the easiest way to create a REST API is just to use the JAX-RS API in your current application. You can start with this JAX-RS tutorial. You would probably also want to use JSON-P for converting between Java objects and JSON. GlassFish, Payara, or any other application server should already provide both the API out of the box.
If you want to use plain servlet container, such as Tomcat, you can add Jersey library to our application, which provides a servlet to support the JAX-RS API in the same way. Or you can alternatively use Spring REST to build the REST API.
I don't recommend to use Node.js just for the REST API - it would introduce a new language for a thing, which can just as easily be done with Java, which is already used by your application. In the end, you would still need to connect the additional Node.js application with the current Java app, which is cumbersome. You would probably end up creating a REST interface between the Node.js app and the Java app, making the Node.js app redundant.
I'm sort of new to http://www.parse.com . And I want to develop backend in Java using REST API. It seems parse.com does not provides direct Java library for REST API development. But I found some third party libraries(un-official) like for Java:
JAVA
Almonds — A Java REST API that mimics the Android API.
mobile-parse-api — This library implements the REST API of parse.com in java with open interfaces for libgdx and playN.
Parse4J — Library for the REST API.
ParseFacade — Parse Android SDK alternative.
But I am not understainding how to get start with these libraries in order to create backend API in Java
#Mahendra
I assume by now you have found your answer. In case you haven't then here is a thought process that might be of interest.
From the little reading I have done on Parse.com it is a sort of like an Object database in itself which provides ready REST style api for all data stored there. See this - https://parse.com/docs/rest/guide
In addition they provide libraries for all popular Front Ends (iOS, Android, JS).
I think they are advocating a paradigm shift for programmers who are used to having a lot of processing on the Backend servers and exposing simpler rest API which provides a processed and targeted response to each http request.
Basically they are suggesting that the whole backend infrastructure (db, app server, server side logic etc) can be replaced by parse.com
If you are considering using Parse.com I assume you have read and understood above mentioned thought process and decided that it makes sense for your project.
I would advise you to consider using a using a common client side Java library that works with the Parse rest api and then use appropriate Client SDK (iOS, Java, JS etc) to work with your library and design the UI. Since you are asking about Java library, I assume your language of choice for storing processing logic is Java.
What I suggest next may be bit of a long shot ... but worth a consideration.
Write code non-ui code in Java and work with the Android API from Parse.com. Use a Java to Objective C. https://github.com/google/j2objc
This will also allow you to use Java code for your web browser (using GWT as a UI framework).
Then write UI code in the framework suited for the platform (obj c for ios, Java for Android, GWT + Java for web browsers) and use the java library to connect to Parse.com.
If you have already tried out such an approach would be good to write back opinions in a comment so the community may benefit.
I have the impression that the Google App Engine allows an interface for developers to make use of Google's servers for storing custom application data in a highly scalable and cost effective way. Whilst working through their tutorials, it seems like tools are focused on aiding the development of 'web applications'.
I'm looking to take advantage of the GAE in order to serve data for a platform independent desktop application that I'm writing in Java, so my end product will not rest within the confines of a browser. Is this functionality supported by the GAE?
Yea! you can do that.
So basically, you are going to build a native application and use API calls to send/receive data from a server(GAE). I see a good solution will be to
Build your API endpoints using the Endpoints lib https://cloud.google.com/appengine/docs/java/endpoints
Then, depending on your application you can make API calls directly or build a client library
I want to create a webservice that allows users to enter the longitude and latitude for a particular building. Buildings will belong to a broader category called a Region. If a specific building does not exist in a region the user could add the longitude and latitude data through the webservice. Similarly if a user finds data to be inaccurate, they could update it.
This webservice would not need to have a web front-end only a RESTful API that would only be accessible to my application(s). I want the webservice to be able to accept new and updated data (as described above) and also print out relevant data (in xml format) based on the appropriate API calls.
I need to ensure that this data would be secure - i.e. nobody would be able to gain access to the data i have accumulated.
What is the best way to do this? I have familiar with client side Java and not much server side technology (not familiar with server-side Java, rails, django, etc...). What language/frameworks should i use that would accomplish my needs with the shallowest learning curve?
You can just use basic authentication (username/pw) with ssl enabled. That way you are encrypting the connection and providing a broadly supported means of authentication. I believe apache Axis will take care of most of it for you.
I've used the Restlet framework to deploy web services that are password protected. It supports basic authentification and several others out of the box. You can also set up your services behind an https "server connector".
Another approach is to run your application in a Java EE application server which supports JSR 196 (eg, Glassfish or JBoss). You would then use the server's facilities to establish the authentication.
Here is the Glassfish security page.
If you have never programmed server-side code you will be facing a pretty steep learning curve, I'm afraid. If you are comfortable with Java then the Restlet framework mentioned by another commenter is a good choice. It is easy to use, includes both client and server tools, and has pretty decent documentation. The video screencasts are very good.
Another option is Ruby on Rails. I am currently implementing something very similar to what you are planning and Rails has worked extremely well. Rails has built-in support for XML output through both the ActiveRecord class and XML Builder templates. I used Atom Authentication (http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2003/12/17/dive.html) between the client and server and it is working beautifully. There is a learning curve for both Ruby and Rails but the power of the framework makes it worth it. I am partial to the Ruby and Rails books at The Pragmatic Programmer but O'Reilly has some good ones, too.