Manuel Vila, writing for freeCodeCamp:

In this article, I introduce the concept of “unified architecture” that dramatically simplifies the development of full-stack applications.

Indeed, this architecture unifies the six physical layers (data access, backend model, API server, API client, frontend model, and user interface) usually seen in “well-designed” applications into one single logical layer.

It is like going from a 3D world to a 2D world. Everything gets a lot easier.

That “unified architecture” manifests itself as Liaison, which we linked to last week and it caused some… controversy discussion. In this article, Manuel explains why Liaison is different than similar RPC things that came before it. Interesting stuff, to say the least.

Most of the time, web APIs are not functional requirements. They don’t add any value to the product we are building. They are just a necessary evil so the frontend can communicate with the backend. But is that really the case? Wouldn’t it be possible to get rid of these web APIs?

In response to this, Manuel built Liaison, which is still in alpha, but aims to seamlessly bridge the divide between frontend and backend without having to formalize an API between the two.

From reading the post, it appears to be akin to our old friend, RPC. If you are interested enough to dive into the code, he’s put together a RealWorld example which holds up quite well to the competition on a lines-of-code-to-implement basis.

Manuel Vila:

What makes GraphQL so exciting is the ability to compose method calls, and Deepr is a way to achieve that and only that. Because everything else, we believe, would be better implemented somewhere else in the stack.

Deepr is being built by folks who’ve been using GraphQL for awhile, love it, and have some ideas about how things might be even better by changing some key decisions. Worth a look, for sure.

Manuel Vila:

We are using more and more command-line tools, and while many of them are really good, I think they could be even better if they were based on more modern foundations. Because our tools are based on ancient paradigms (*nix, Bash, etc.), it’s difficult for them to be both customizable and easy to use.

After working for a year trying to solve this problem, he came up with “resources”, which he says:

brings an object-oriented interface to the command-line tools, making them a lot more flexible, composable, and user-friendly.

The curmudgeon in me immediately thought, “old dog … new tricks”, but Manuel has a reply ready:

I am well aware that I am not going to change 50 years of old practices by myself. It has to be a collective effort. So I’m trying to communicate as much as I can to find the few people crazy enough to join the adventure.

Are you “crazy enough” to go on the adventure with him? Click through to find out more.