cf-framework-strategy

A Minimalist Node.js Framework Abstraction

** Work in Progress**

This node web framework abstraction strives to provide a consistent, pragmatic, and smart standard for interacting with node's native http module through the various competing high performing frameworks such as Express and Hapi.

Why is it that with every new major framework version, we are left with painful code rewriting? How come when you start a new project and you decide on a different framework, you are left with less than ideal amounts of code reuse from previous projects even though you're doing the exact same things? I mean, how many different ways do we know to send a response and read from a request? This should all be standardized by now. The responsible thing for new framework creators to do would be heed the inherent advice from previous frameworks rather than introduce new interfaces simply because the author prefers a particular wording or syntax. Unless the change in interface is purely for performance gains, which, I would argue, the interface should be decoupled from this ANYWAYS, consistency should be a primary goal.

In the case where a framework interface must change due to some performance (or security) implication, you can be confident that your client projects can be updated with a quick change in dependency. Another benefit is the ability to load test your application on various leading frameworks at the click of a button, as well as go back in time and try new framework versions out on older code in order to compare performance.

Meet cf-framework-strategy. It goes a little something like this:

YourProjectA__                             __Express
              \                           /
               respond.with(200, 'Hello')---AnotherFutureFramework
YourProjectB__/                           \__Hapi

Perhaps this project will grow into a number of separate libraries all inheriting from some base interface; this way, different versionings of each framework can be supported exclusive to each other. If community backing ever grows on this, that is a real consideration, but for now, I'm hapi, err, I mean happy with the latest versions of every framework I use.

Example Express Usage

let FrameworkStrategy = require('cf-framework-strategy').express;

let framework = new FrameworkStrategy({
  http: {
    port: 3000
  }
});

framework
  .start()
  .then(() => {

    framework.addRoute('/', {
      post: (request, respond) => {
        console.log(request.getBody());
        respond.with(200, 'Hello Express');
      }
    });

  });

Example Hapi Usage

let FrameworkStrategy = require('cf-framework-strategy').hapi;

let framework = new FrameworkStrategy({
  http: {
    port: 3000
  }
});

framework
  .start()
  .then(() => {

    framework.addRoute('/', {
      post: (request, respond) => {
        console.log(request.getBody());
        respond.with(200, 'Hello Hapi');
      }
    });

  });

Responding With a File

  respond.withFile(location);

Get Object of Cookies

  request.getCookies();

Forcing HTTPS

This will redirect all http requests to https. You may define the ports of each as follows:

let framework = new FrameworkStrategy({
  http: {
    port: 80
  },
  https: {
    port: 443,
    force: true,
    options: {
      key: fs.readFileSync('./ssl/my.key'),
      cert: fs.readFileSync('./ssl/my.crt')
    }
  }
});