On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 04:01:14PM -0400, Aryeh Gregor wrote:
On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 3:24 PM, Jay R. Ashworth jra@baylink.com wrote:
So the obvious followup question is: is there a plan to migrate the front end to *use the API* to talk to the backend (which is the preferred approach to such things anyway)?
As a more philosophical thing, there's no reason for the human UI to call the API.
Sure there is. Jon Bentley is wrong?
We should have a back-end, and then two interfaces tothat: one designed for external robots, and one designed for HTML-viewing humans. Both of the interfaces should use the internal PHP interface to speak to the back-end. The API operates in a format that's suitable for robots to use, not suitable for internal code to use.
I think we're bandying semantics. There should be one interface to the core, which provides all the functionality necessary, and one of the clients to that interface should be the tradtional front end.
It's a design pattern that is well tested and proven... and means you never have to hear "why can't I access that function from the front end" again.
It also makes for a cleaner separation of powers from the UI to the core.
Cheers, -- jra