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It's the same in that they both use our webservice, but the Shopify add on doesn't use this Rails plugin. The Shopify add-on is actually fairly different from

by wheels 16y ago

It's the same in that they both use our webservice, but the Shopify add on doesn't use this Rails plugin. The Shopify add-on is actually fairly different from the usual webservices product since it's completely usable by non-developery sorts. We handle pulling the shop's data from Shopify and spitting out Javascript that displays the recommendations, have a settings panel that shop owners use and so on. In comparison, this is basically just glue that get's things one layer abstraction further (relative to our Ruby bindings) from having to think about the web service.

revorad 16y ago
I imagine the Rails plugin is more flexible. But can one apply weights with the Shopify add on?
- wheels 16y ago
  They're kind of differently inflexible. :-) So, they're both moving away from the generality of the bindings, which are a pretty faithful mapping of the capabilities of the API, to make simplifying assumptions to make the API easier to use. But they're so different that it's difficult to compare directly. The Shopify app is a pretty normal web app. None of its users know that there's anything API-ish about it, nor do they care. You can set weights, but only for pre-specified things: https://skitch.com/scotchi/rw5a3/directed-edge-expressrex-for-shopify https://skitch.com/scotchi/rw5a3/directed-edge-expressrex-fo... There are a bunch of features of the API that aren't exposed via the Rails plugin (even a couple that are used in the Shopify app) and it does, at present, assume that you're just latching onto a preexisting model. That said, using the Rails plugin is kind of like using a C API from C++ -- you can drop down to the lower level of abstraction if you need to. So while the plugin is, say, a minimum viable plugin at the moment, you can still get the full flexibility of the bindings at will if you're willing to trade some simplicity.
  - revorad 16y ago
    Thanks for your patient responses. I'm so curious because all this goodness you guys are cooking up at DE makes me want to sell something, anything on the internets so that I can use your awesome product.

by wheels 16y ago

revorad 16y ago

I imagine the Rails plugin is more flexible. But can one apply weights with the Shopify add on?

wheels 16y ago
They're kind of differently inflexible. :-) So, they're both moving away from the generality of the bindings, which are a pretty faithful mapping of the capabilities of the API, to make simplifying assumptions to make the API easier to use. But they're so different that it's difficult to compare directly. The Shopify app is a pretty normal web app. None of its users know that there's anything API-ish about it, nor do they care. You can set weights, but only for pre-specified things: https://skitch.com/scotchi/rw5a3/directed-edge-expressrex-for-shopify https://skitch.com/scotchi/rw5a3/directed-edge-expressrex-fo... There are a bunch of features of the API that aren't exposed via the Rails plugin (even a couple that are used in the Shopify app) and it does, at present, assume that you're just latching onto a preexisting model. That said, using the Rails plugin is kind of like using a C API from C++ -- you can drop down to the lower level of abstraction if you need to. So while the plugin is, say, a minimum viable plugin at the moment, you can still get the full flexibility of the bindings at will if you're willing to trade some simplicity.
- revorad 16y ago
  Thanks for your patient responses. I'm so curious because all this goodness you guys are cooking up at DE makes me want to sell something, anything on the internets so that I can use your awesome product.