WABuR (Web Application Builder using Ruby)

WABuR is a Web Application Builder using Ruby. It is easy to use, taking just a minute to create a Hello World web application and it is FAST, hitting over 200,000 fetches a second with a Ruby core! It employs a modern NoSQL JSON data store and a single-page UI using JavaScript.

It is pluggable and extendable in many ways to allow new additions, alternative databases, and any number of UIs.

Quick Start

With WABuR you are up and running in minutes with only one file to modify to specify attributes. It doesn't get any simpler. Heres how.

Install the wabur gem.

$ gem install wabur

Create a new project and cd into the directory.

$ wabur new --base blog Entry
$ cd blog

Define attributes for the data elements along with the attributes that will be displayed in a list view. Open lib/ui_controller.rb and modify by adding two lines and changing one.

require 'wab/ui'

class UIController < WAB::UI::MultiFlow

  def initialize(shell)
    super
    add_flow(WAB::UI::RestFlow.new(shell,
                                   {
                                     kind: 'Entry',
                                     title: '',
                                     content: "\n\n\n\n",
                                   }, ['$ref', 'title']))
  end
end

Just run the wabur command from inside the project directory. Open localhost:6363 in a browser.

$ wabur

Want to know more? A tutorial is available in the tutorial directory. It takes a couple of minutes to go through the first lesson.

WABuR Benchmarks

Runner	Read Throughput	Read Latency	Create Throughput	Create Latency	Setup time
WAB Pure Ruby	2.8K Reads/sec	1.4 msecs	2.2K Creates/sec	1.8 msecs	1 minute
OpO-Rub	212K Reads/sec	0.09 msecs	134K Creates/sec	0.15 msecs	1 minute
OpO Direct	364K Reads/sec	0.05 msecs	157K Creates/sec	0.13 msecs	1 minute
Ruby on Rails	123 Reads/sec	175 msecs	---- Creates/sec	---- msecs	20 minutes
Sinatra	1.5K Reads/sec	13 msecs	---- Creates/sec	---- msecs	60 minutes

More interested in the benchmarks? Then take a look at the benchmarks page.

Where to use WABuR

WABuR takes a different approach which opens up new possibilities for uses of Ruby. Some examples that WABuR is suitable for are:

• Race Results - With the ability to handle massive traffic WABuR can keep up with the load imposed by hundreds of thousands of users requesting results during the race and with the ability to have multiple UIs realtime displays can be different than those used to display results after the race.

• Voting Systems - Voting systems collect and forward results to central servers. Loads are high during peak periods but well within the limits that WABuR is able to handle. The ease extending WABuR makes it easy to implement the migration of data to a central server or multiple servers.

• Operations Monitoring - Log using JSON and WABuR can be used to monitor and query logs.

• Market Data - With the high throughput and low latency WABuR is a good candidate for systems that need to display market data and processing of market data.

• Mapping - Systems that display data on a map can use WABuRs flexibility with regard to the UI.

• Directory - As an example of a quick and easy build, an directory or address book can be started in minutes.

Rails

A natural question is "What about Rails?". Rails is well established and has a huge user base. WABuR is not a replacement for Rails. It is an alternative for those who want to explore using JSON databases with a single-page dynamic JavaScript UI.

Participate and Contribute

If you like the idea and want to help out, or become a core developer on the project, send me an email. Get in on the ground floor and lets make something awesome together.

Guidelines

These are the simple guidelines for contributing.

1. Take a look at the architecture page and the source code.

2. Coordinate with me first before getting started to avoid duplication of effort or implementing something in conflict with the plans.

3. Branch off the develop branch and submit a PR.

4. Write unit tests.

5. Write straight forward, clean, and simple code. No magic stuff, no monkey patching Ruby core classes, and no inheriting from core classes.

References and Links

• Agoo Web Server Gem
• Oj JSON parser used in WABuR.
• OpO home of the Opo-Rub runner.
• Sass used to build the reference implementation UI CSS.
• SystemJS Babel Plugin also used to transpile JavaScript.
• SystemJS used to convert JavaScript ES6 to ES5 in the browser.