5 ms·

Show HN: Teleport – Lightweight JSON types

26 points by boronine 12y ago

stdbrouw 12y ago
Hmm, so the types are not actually a part of the JSON output, but they live in a separate schema. That being the case, I would've preferred if this were built on top of http://json-schema.org/ http://json-schema.org/ instead of something entirely new and Python-specific. It seems like for the past couple of years JSON-schema has been just below some critical treshold for it to take off. Why not define models with JSON schema instead of a custom format for each web framework? Why not use JSON schemas to build forms, validation logic and admin interfaces, like https://github.com/jdorn/json-editor https://github.com/jdorn/json-editor does? Why not document your API by specifying the JSON schema a GET request returns? (http://raml.org/ http://raml.org/ sort of does this). Seems like a chicken and egg problem where currently the tools are not yet nice enough to merit widespread adoption, but with widespread adoption they'd get to be really nice and cross-platform.
- boronine 12y ago
  Fair questions! Teleport actually aims to be an alternative to JSON-schema: much smaller but more extensible. Python is merely the language of the reference implementation. I'm working on a specification a JavaScript port is in the works too.
theflubba 12y ago
Just use protocol buffers. This can't really be a serious competitor to json/thrift/protobuf with no benchmarks and only a python client, sorry.
- habitue 12y ago
  Your comment would be so much better without the condescending "sorry" at the end. You're in a public forum airing your opinion, not rejecting an application for something.
  - theflubba 12y ago
    Sorry
alexatkeplar 12y ago
It looks like Teleport is trying to do too many things. Input validation systems are great - there's an excellent one for Python already, called Schematics (https://github.com/schematics/schematics https://github.com/schematics/schematics). Declarative schema systems are also great - JSON Schema (http://json-schema.org/ http://json-schema.org/) is the industry standard for JSON. The clever thing about JSON Schema is that it is itself written using JSON - so it's completely language independent. A JSON Schema is a document which you can a) version and b) upload to a schema repository like Iglu (https://github.com/snowplow/iglu https://github.com/snowplow/iglu). I don't see any equivalent non-language-tied schema approach in Teleport. Thirdly, tooling to help document APIs is also a great aim - the go-to project here is Swagger (https://helloreverb.com/developers/swagger https://helloreverb.com/developers/swagger). These are all huge problems _in themselves_, and the above solutions have lots of cross-platform tooling, developer mindshare and polyglot language support. I think you need to decide what problem you want Teleport to solve...
- fiatjaf 12y ago
  Don't listen to this. Do your thing. Industry standards also die and change.
  - boronine 12y ago
    Thank you!
- curun1r 12y ago
  Swagger may claim to be polyglot, but it seems really Java focused to me and I've yet to see an implementation for another language, particularly one that's difficult to analyze statically (the power of swagger is the ability to generate the majority of the API documentation from code and annotations, something not possible in dynamic languages), that's not a huge train wreck. Solutions like http://apiblueprint.org/ http://apiblueprint.org/ and http://raml.org/ http://raml.org/ are much more language-neutral than Swagger.
  - alexatkeplar 12y ago
mstade 12y ago
How does this compare to something like transit[1]? [1]: https://github.com/cognitect/transit-format https://github.com/cognitect/transit-format
- boronine 12y ago
  * Teleport's JSON form follows conventions of web APIs, Transit's JSON form doesn't look so familiar * Teleport does everything it needs to do in less than 1000 LOC, and I'm planning to keep it small maximum portability

26 points by boronine 12y ago

Hmm, so the types are not actually a part of the JSON output, but they live in a separate schema. That being the case, I would've preferred if this were built on top of http://json-schema.org/ http://json-schema.org/ instead of something entirely new and Python-specific. It seems like for the past couple of years JSON-schema has been just below some critical treshold for it to take off. Why not define models with JSON schema instead of a custom format for each web framework? Why not use JSON schemas to build forms, validation logic and admin interfaces, like https://github.com/jdorn/json-editor https://github.com/jdorn/json-editor does? Why not document your API by specifying the JSON schema a GET request returns? (http://raml.org/ http://raml.org/ sort of does this). Seems like a chicken and egg problem where currently the tools are not yet nice enough to merit widespread adoption, but with widespread adoption they'd get to be really nice and cross-platform.

boronine 12y ago
Fair questions! Teleport actually aims to be an alternative to JSON-schema: much smaller but more extensible. Python is merely the language of the reference implementation. I'm working on a specification a JavaScript port is in the works too.

theflubba 12y ago

Just use protocol buffers. This can't really be a serious competitor to json/thrift/protobuf with no benchmarks and only a python client, sorry.

habitue 12y ago
Your comment would be so much better without the condescending "sorry" at the end. You're in a public forum airing your opinion, not rejecting an application for something.
- theflubba 12y ago
  Sorry

alexatkeplar 12y ago

It looks like Teleport is trying to do too many things. Input validation systems are great - there's an excellent one for Python already, called Schematics (https://github.com/schematics/schematics https://github.com/schematics/schematics). Declarative schema systems are also great - JSON Schema (http://json-schema.org/ http://json-schema.org/) is the industry standard for JSON. The clever thing about JSON Schema is that it is itself written using JSON - so it's completely language independent. A JSON Schema is a document which you can a) version and b) upload to a schema repository like Iglu (https://github.com/snowplow/iglu https://github.com/snowplow/iglu). I don't see any equivalent non-language-tied schema approach in Teleport. Thirdly, tooling to help document APIs is also a great aim - the go-to project here is Swagger (https://helloreverb.com/developers/swagger https://helloreverb.com/developers/swagger). These are all huge problems _in themselves_, and the above solutions have lots of cross-platform tooling, developer mindshare and polyglot language support. I think you need to decide what problem you want Teleport to solve...

fiatjaf 12y ago
Don't listen to this. Do your thing. Industry standards also die and change.
- boronine 12y ago
  Thank you!
curun1r 12y ago
Swagger may claim to be polyglot, but it seems really Java focused to me and I've yet to see an implementation for another language, particularly one that's difficult to analyze statically (the power of swagger is the ability to generate the majority of the API documentation from code and annotations, something not possible in dynamic languages), that's not a huge train wreck. Solutions like http://apiblueprint.org/ http://apiblueprint.org/ and http://raml.org/ http://raml.org/ are much more language-neutral than Swagger.
- alexatkeplar 12y ago

mstade 12y ago

How does this compare to something like transit[1]? [1]: https://github.com/cognitect/transit-format https://github.com/cognitect/transit-format

boronine 12y ago
* Teleport's JSON form follows conventions of web APIs, Transit's JSON form doesn't look so familiar * Teleport does everything it needs to do in less than 1000 LOC, and I'm planning to keep it small maximum portability