Re: IBM i authentication and RESTful web service design

On Tue, May 19, 2015 at 7:44 AM, Kelly Cookson <KCookson@xxxxxxxxxxxx>

wrote:

Why not just learn .NET web and mobile development and keep everybody on

the same standards?

Given your preference for single page applications (SPAs) and retaining
"state" on clients, it seem to me that the only reason for ASP.NET would be
when clients need to access resources on Microsoft servers.

Wouldn't ASP.Net be completely superfluous, for clients that need to access
IBM i resources? No need for ASP.Net to dynamically generate HTML because
HTML would be static. No need for ASP.Net to maintain sessions, because
clients maintain their own state. No need for ASP.Net to provide a gateway
to IBM i data and other resources because those resources could be accessed
via an IBM i HTTP server and an IBM i Web Services Utility.

In the case of IBM i resources, it appears to me that ASP.Net would just
add latency, add a potential failure point, add complexity, add needless
security requirements, be a potential bottleneck, add cost, and be
completely unnecessary. It could save time, save money, improve security,
and improve the user experience by eliminating ASP.Net from the mix.

This perspective assumes that you have real intent to develop SPAs which
maintain client state, and control the interactions between the client and
an IBM i HTTP server. The HTTP server and an IBM i Web Services Utility
could be the gateway to IBM i resources.

Although the client's interactions with a Web Services Utility might be via
simple URI and an exchange of JSON objects, you might streamline the
interface via a JavaScript API which might be paired with the functionality
of the Web Services Utility.

var tableName = 'STUDENTS';

statusObject = wsuStatusObject();
studentRecord = wsuGetRecordObject(tableName);

studentRecord.lastName = form[0].lastName.value;
studentRecord.firstName = form[0].firstName.value;
studentRecord.middleName = form[0].middleName.value;
studentRecord.gradeLevel = form[0].gradeLevel.value;

wsuWriteRecord(studentRecord, statusObject);

if (statusObject.error) {
...
}