A Case Study On Using Open Source Tools To Build A Platform For ...
A
case
study
on
using
open
source
tools
to
build
a
platform
for
enterprise
web
applications
using
symfony
and
Yahoo!
User
Interface
libraries.
Dustin
Whittle
Yahoo!
symfony
+
Yahoo!
User
Interface
Libraries
‣ How
did
Yahoo!
architect
Yahoo!
Answers
with
symfony
and
Yahoo!
User
Interface
libraries?
‣ What
worked
and
what
did
not
when
building
a
large
web
2.0
product
from
open
source
tools?
‣ How
to
work
with
open
source
frameworks
in
the
enterprise?
‣ How
to
develop,
test,
and
deploy
Web
2.0
applications
for
the
enterprise
using
symfony
and
the
Yahoo!
UI
libraries
‣ Q
&
A?
symfony‐project.com
|
developer.yahoo.com
A
look
at
Yahoo!
Answers
‣ http://answers.yahoo.com
‣ Yahoo!
Answers
is
the
largest
collection
of
human
knowledge
on
the
Web
with
more
than
135
million
users
and
515
million
answers
worldwide
(Yahoo!
Internal
Data,
March
2008).
‣ Yahoo!
Answers
is
the
2nd
ranked
education
&
reference
site
on
the
web
(comScore)
‣ Available
in
26
markets
and
12
languages
A
look
at
the
open
source
Yahoo!
‣ Yahoo!
is
built
from
open
source
tools
and
communities
‣ FreeBSD,
Linux,
Apache,
PHP,
MySQL
‣ We
contribute
back
and
everyone
wins
‣ We
share
our
tools,
experience,
and
data
through
open
APIs
and
web
services
‣ Yahoo!
User
Interface
Libraries
+
Edge
Caching
‣ User
Interface
Design
Patterns
‣ Exceptional
Performance
Rules
+
YSlow
‣ R3
Template
+
Translation
Management
A
look
at
Yahoo!
User
Interface
Libraries
‣ JavaScript
Framework
‣ Utilities
‐
YAHOO,
Dom,
Event,
Animation,
Browser
History
Manager,
Connection
Manager,
Cookie,
DataSource,
Drag
and
Drop,
Element,
Get,
ImageLoader,
JSON,
Resize,
Selector,
Loader
‣ Controls
/
Widgets
‐
AutoComplete,
Button,
Calendar,
Charts,
Color
Picker,
DataTable,
ImageCropper,
Rich
Text
Editor,
Slider,
Uploader
‣ Container
(Module,
Overlay,
Panel,
Tooltip,
Dialog),
Layout
Manager,
Menu,
TabView,
TreeView
‣ Debug
–
Logger,
Profiler,
Test
A
look
at
Yahoo!
User
Interface
Libraries
‣ CSS
Foundation
‣ Reset
‐
Neutralizes
browser
CSS
styles
‣ Base
‐
Applies
consistent
style
foundation
‣ Fonts
‐
Foundation
for
typography
and
font‐sizing
‣ Grids
‐
Thousands
of
wireframe
layouts
‣ User
Interface
Design
Patterns
Library
‣ Proven
solutions
to
common
interfaces
‣ http://developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns/
‣ Grade
Browser
Support
/
Progressive
Enhancement
Yahoo!
Answers
at
the
beginning
‣ Started
as
a
small
development
team
on
PHP4
from
a
fork
of
Yahoo!
Taiwan
Knowledge+
‣ Launched
December
2005
by
December
2006
there
were
60
million
users
and
65
million
answers
‣ The
code
base
eventually
became
difficult
to
maintain
and
iterate
new
features
on
‣ Large
distributed
development
teams
(US
/
UK)
Y!
Answers
Architecture
Users
Load
Balancers
Frontend
Apache
PHP
symfony
/
YUI
Custom
Modules
APC,
PEAR,
PECL,
Custom
Extensions
Backend
MySQL/Oracle
Web
Services
Ad
API
User
API
FreeBSD
4.x/6.x,
Linux
2.6.x
The
choice
to
use
an
open
source
framework
‣ symfony
was
investigated
for
use
on
Yahoo!
Bookmarks
as
a
test
for
the
later
re‐architecture
of
Yahoo!
Answers
‣ Investigation
was
performed
in
February
2006
‣ symfony,
CakePHP,
Prado,
Zend
Framework,
Struts,
Tapestry,
Spring,
Seaside,
Ruby
on
Rails,
Django
‣ PHP
has
most
support
internally,
so
the
choice
was
really
between
symfony,
CakePHP,
Prado,
php.MVC,
and
Zend
Framework
What
were
the
needs
from
a
frontend
platform?
‣ Fit
existing
environment
(BSD/PHP5/Apache)
for
phased
migration
‣ Development
Cycle
–
How
easy
to
develop,
test,
and
deploy?
‣ Clean
separation
between
data,
logic,
and
display
(MVC)
‣ Independent
model
layer
to
fit
service
oriented
architecture
‣ Extensible
and
pluggable
‣ Internationalization
and
localization
support
‣ Detailed
documentation
and
active
community
of
support
‣ Open
source
and
ability
to
contribute
back
The
choice
to
use
symfony
‣ Philosophy
‣ Full‐stack
framework
for
building
complex
web
applications
‣ Adopt
best
ideas
from
anywhere,
using
existing
code
if
available
(Mojavi,
Prado,
Rails,
Django)
‣
Design
‣ Clean
separation
between
Model,
View,
and
Controller
‣ Controller
using
modules
and
actions
‣ Views
using
templates
in
straight
PHP
with
helpers
‣ Easy
to
reuse
view
modules
to
compose
a
page
‣ Layouts,
Components,
Partials,
Slots
The
choice
to
use
symfony
‣ Configurability
/
Flexibility
‣ Features
we
do
not
want
are
easily
disabled
‣ Use
of
factories
for
easy
customization
‣ Documentation
/
Support
Community
‣ The
Definitive
Guide
to
symfony
(free
online)
‣ Excellent
tutorials
and
example
applications
‐
Askeet
‣ Active
community
with
wiki,
mailing
lists,
forums,
irc
channel
A
look
at
symfony
features
‣ MVC
Design
+
Project/Application
Structure
‣ Cascading
Configuration
System
(YAML
‐>
PHP)
‣ Environments
–
Dev,
Prod,
Test,
QA,
Staging
‣ Task
System
–
Tasks
system
for
project
management
‣ Internationalization
+
Localization
Support
‣ Form
/
Widget
/
Validation
System
‣ Security
–
CSRF
+
XSS
Protection
+
User
Management
‣ Caching
–
APC,
Memcache,
File,
Database
‣ Testing
Framework
–
LIME
Unit
+
Functional
Views
are
organized
and
reusable
‣ Actions
can
render
different
views,
a
partial,
or
a
component
(think:
same
action
for
ajax)
‣ View.yml
–
Configures
css,
js,
meta,
layout
(app/module/action)
‣ Layouts
–
Most
web
apps
consist
of
full
page
and
popup
layout
‣ A
partial
is
a
static
template
fragment
(think:
footer)
‣ A
component
is
a
template
fragment
with
business
logic
(think:
popular
list)
‣ Slots
are
placeholders
in
a
page
and
can
be
set
from
anywhere
Component
Partials
Slots
Layouts
A
complete
frontend
platform
‣ A
community
maintained
approach
to
building
web
applications
from
frameworks
‣ PHP
Framework
‣ JavaScript
Framework
‣ CSS
Framework
‣ UI
Design
Patterns
+
Best
Practices
‣ Development
Tools
(logger,
profiler,
debugger,
docs)
‣ Unit
+
Functional
Testing
Frameworks
(LIME
/
YUI
Test)
‣ Deployment
Tools
(rsync
deployment
system)
What
does
Yahoo!
change?
‣ Minor
changes
to
fit
our
environment
(bsd/php/apache)
‣ Most
of
our
changes
are
easily
implemented
via
factories
‣ Added
dimensions
to
configurations
(ysfDimensionsPlugin)
‣ Integrate
R3
translation/template
management
(ysfR3Plugin)
‣ R3
‐
http://developer.yahoo.com/r3/
‣
Dropped
the
ORM
and
pushed
down
the
stack
(SOA)
‣ Added
a
parallel
API
Dispatcher
(ysfAPIClientPlugin)
‣ Created
a
build
and
deployment
solution
(ysfBuildPlugin)
‣ Integrate
support
for
Y!
User
Interface
libraries
(ysfYUIPlugin)
Localizing
the
experience
with
dimensions
‣ Cascading
Configuration
based
on
YAML
‣ Framework
‐>
Project
‐>
Application
‐>
Module
‣ Extending
the
cascade
to
be
based
on
dimensions
‣ Dimensions
can
be
anything
(and
can
be
chained
together)
‣ Data
Center
+
Environment
for
customizing
configurations
‣ Culture
for
localizing
user
interface
+
data
‣ Theme
for
customizing
look
and
feel
‣ User
info
(is
user
on
corporate
intranet?)
‣ Caching
Extending
the
view
+
i18n
system
with
R3
‣ Translation
+
Template
Management
‣ Integrated
with
symfony
i18n
+
view
layers
‣ <r3:trans>hello</r3:trans>
vs
__(‘hello’)
‣ Dictionary
Management
‣ SQLite/XLIFF
Backend
‣ r3:include,
r3:var,
r3:cphp
‣ Added
tasks
‣ Importing/Exporting
XLIFF
dictionary
‣ Generating
translations
for
projects
A
build
and
deployment
system
‣ Aggregate
and
minify
stylesheets
and
javascripts
‣ Rewrite
templates,
css,
js
for
CDN
(Akamai,
S3,
…)
‣ Generate
translations
for
configurations
+
templates
‣ Generate
configuration
cache
‣ Aggregate
core
classes
+
remove
debug
statements
‣ Run
lint,
unit,
functional
tests
‣ Package
applications
as
.tgz
‣ Deployment
via
rsync
Real
World
Performance
‣ symfony
is
not
targeted
for
building
hello
world
‐‐
It
is
targeted
at
building
complex
web
applications
‣ symfony
can
provide
many
features
(db,
i18n,
security,
orm)
disable
the
ones
you
will
not
use
‣ Yahoo!
Bookmarks
‣ Yahoo!
Answers
‣ 100%
dynamic
(no
view
caching)
‣ 40‐120qps
with
<
100ms
frontend
latency
‣ Yahoo!
Widgets
symfony
Documentation
‣ The
Definitive
Guide
to
symfony
‣ http://symfony‐project.com/book/1_1
‣ Licensed
under
GFDL
(read
it
free)
‣ API
Documentation
‣ http://www.symfony‐project.org/api/1_1/
‣ Wiki
‣ http://trac.symfony‐project.com/wiki
‣ Many
useful
tutorials,
how
to,
and
translations
Askeet
Advent
+
Community
Support
‣ Askeet.com
‣ http://symfony‐project.com/askeet
‣ 24
Day
Tutorial
‣ How
to
build
a
real
web
2.0
application
‣ In‐depth
coverage
of
all
aspects
of
symfony
‣ IRC,
Mailing
List,
and
Forums
‣ irc://irc.freenode.net/#symfony
‣ symfony‐users@googlegroups.com
‣ http://symfony‐project.com/forum
YUI
Examples
+
Documentation
‣ More
than
275
functional
examples
‣ http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/examples/
‣ Yslow
+
Performance
Rules
‣ http://developer.yahoo.com/performance
‣ YUI
Blog
‣ http://yuiblog.com/
‣ Mailing
List
@
Yahoo!
Groups
‣ http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ydn‐javascript/
Getting
started
in
10
minutes
‣ Install
symfony
from
PEAR
‣ pear
channel‐discover
pear.symfony‐project.com
‣ pear
install
symfony/symfony‐beta
‣ Create
a
project
with
symfony
cli
‣ mkdir
web2expo
;
cd
web2expo
‣ symfony
generate:project
web2expo
‣ symfony
generate:app
frontend
‣ symfony
generate:module
frontend
demo
Install
a
foundation
from
plugins
‣ Community
plugins
‣ symfony
plugin:install
sfGuardPlugin
‣ symfony
plugin:install
sfFeed2Plugin
‣ Yahoo!
Plugins
(will
be
released
with
1.1
stable)
‣ symfony
plugin:install
ysfDimensionsPlugin
‣ symfony
plugin:install
ysfR3Plugin
‣ symfony
plugin:install
ysfBuildPlugin
‣ symfony
plugin:install
ysfYUIPlugin
Questions?
Thanks
for
listening
and
enjoy
the
rest
of
the
Web
2.0
Expo!
