Dev,
I’ve been taking feedback from other Airavata developers and working on
requirements for a next generation architecture for the PGA. First I’ll list
out the requirements as I see them. Then I will propose what I feel is a best
fit for these requirements. Feedback on all of this is much appreciated.
Requirements
The following is a list of problems we would like to solve by adopting a new
web framework. A new web framework here means both the backend framework for
server side code as well as the frontend framework for client side code.
1. Have the ability to independently add new views to the portal. Framework
should have some concept of modularity so new functionality can be added
without having to make changes to other parts of the portal. This would
facilitate new features moving into production faster.
2. Have the ability to make calls to Identity Server (SOAP) and Airavata
(Thrift). Would be good if there is support for interacting with other remote
computing protocols and HPC resources.
3. Be themable/skinnable and modular. Gateways should be able to customize the
look and feel and make the portal their own. Gateways should be able to
customize the functionality available in the portal, removing and adding just
the functionality tailored for that specific gateway.
4. The backend framework should support different modes of web development:
server-side rendered views as well as REST API for client side views.
5. The backend framework should be able to easily integrate with existing
scientific codes for visualization and analysis. This would allow developing
lightweight domain specific functionality within the portal itself.
6. The backend and frontend frameworks should have active communities and some
longevity, helping to ensure continued support in the future.
7. The backend and frontend frameworks should have a gentle learning curve to
promote onboarding new contributors. Setting up a local development environment
should be relatively easy.
8. The frontend framework should allow the development of more sophisticated
client side views:
• Domain specific and interactive views for configuring applications
and viewing results
• Domain specific and interactive views for browsing, filtering and
managing remote and personal data collections
• More up front validation of application configurations
Proposed solution
With these requirements I feel like Django as a backend framework and React as
a frontend framework are the best fit. Here are the benefits I see of adopting
Django:
* Django has a builtin concept of modularity, the application [1]. This would
allow the independent development of new views for new funtionality (req 1) as
well as making it possible to tailor a portal to a gateway’s needs (req 3).
* Django has a very active community and lots of off the shelf applications [2]
that can be used to either quickly develop common portal functionality or to
add gateway specific features
* Being written in Python means that the backend can easily integrate with
Python scientific codes for quick data analysis and visualization tasks
* A side benefit of a Python based portal is the opportunity to develop a first
class Airavata client in Python. This could enable scripts to take advantage of
the Airavata API or Juptyer like interactions with the API.
* Django is well-documented and relatively straightforward to work with, easing
on-boarding of new developers
Regarding React, I see these benefits:
* React is a much more powerful and scalable approach to web UI development
than just using jQuery, which is what the current PGA uses. With React we can
build UIs with a higher degree of interactivity. And we can build richer, more
domain-specific interfaces.
* Unlike other JS frameworks that have a very large API to learn, the concepts
and API surface of React is fairly small. The main challenge is learning to
“think in React” [3]
Again, feedback on this is much appreciated.
Thanks,
Marcus
[1] https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.10/ref/applications/
[2] https://djangopackages.org/
[3] https://facebook.github.io/react/docs/thinking-in-react.html
