Hello all
I was wondering, in creating a web app, what about “installing” the backend technologies like Ruby on Rails or Django… And what about databases like MongoDB and MySql. And what about Java Virtual Machine and Spring. And what if I want to use Heroku. I’m curious how the SAFE network can be used as the backend for web and mobile apps.
Thanks in advance
SAFE HTML web apps will be more like a noBackend.org system than you are used to.
We have to move more things into client side that would normally sit on the server, although there are developments unfolding in how Structured Data will work that may allow the network to provide more functionality than simple storage - perhaps some database like enumeration which will be amazing, and could make this task much simpler. I’m waiting with baited breath on this! 
I started a project, SAFEpress, to develop both a framework for building dynamic web apps using this approach, and create a CMS for none HTML coders to use to build dynamic websites. It is very early stage and needs more hands!
Take a look at http://safepress.io - if you dig into the github repo you’ll find an Outline Design that should help, and I also submitted an RFC as a pull request to MaidSafe, which proposes one way of implementing this, but I don’t know if MaidSafe like this idea - any news on that @viv? They might not want to provide this in their plug-in, or may have another approach in mind, but I haven’t had any feedback yet for obvious reasons - they are working flat out to get the core network and apps finished.
If you have questions about SAFEpress, please consider joining our Google group and posting them there. You’ll find more about the project status (tasks etc) on our Trello page. Links for these are on the SAFEpress website.
Thanks for the reply.
So would we have to create Single Page Apps with frameworks like AngularJS? All the business logic I gather would have to be in the client, yes?
SAFEpress is an awesome idea btw. I think it would be a wonderful service for the SAFE network.
You can use any frameworks you like, but obviously any parts of them that expect server side support won’t work without some work.
The idea of SAFEpress is to provide those bits, but not necessarily for a particular framework. Ideally we’ll put together client side API that provides those functions, and then people can build on that either directly or with another framework. In the latter case, they or someone else will need to provide a bridge between anything in their chosen framework that expects server side features, and the SAFEpress API.
Most of these issues are completely up in the air at the moment though, because we don’t know enough about either how structured data will work, or how the functionality we need to provide dynamic web apps client side, will be implemented in the MaidSafe SAFE Browser plug-in. In fact, we don’t yet know if this will be supported in the plugin or if we’ll have to roll our own for that. I submitted an RFC with my ideas on how to do it, but MaidSafe have not commented on it yet.