/rails-as-api-framework

This is a guest lecture I gave to Deborah Estrin's CS5454 ("Mobile and Ubiquitous Computing") course at Cornell Tech on December 10, 2014 on using Rails as framework for building APIs.

Primary LanguageJavaScript

Rails as an API Framework

This is a guest lecture I gave to Deborah Estrin's CS5454 ("Mobile and Ubiquitous Computing") course at Cornell Tech on December 10, 2014.

The requested topic (from students) was "Comparing Mobile API Frameworks", but I made a few modifications to the focus to be more on how I build APIs using Rails (and why I think Rails is an ideal starting framework for first-time API creators).

If anybody would like me to update this presentation and give it as a talk at a meetup or other event, reach out to me on Twitter: @mcarroll Would be happy to flesh this out to go deeper into using Rails for APIs, like ActionController::Metal, OAuth, and optimizing configuration on the Rack level.

P.S. -- This presentation is built with bespoke.js!

View slides locally

First, ensure you have the following installed:

  1. Node.js
  2. Bower: $ npm install -g bower
  3. Gulp: $ npm install -g gulp

Then, install dependencies and run the preview server:

$ npm install && bower install
$ gulp serve