twutter

This repository is archived.

This was an early exploration into what a front-to-back Dart app could look like and thus what I should build for Shorebird.

After speaking with more customers we decided to pursue a code-push product first before possibly later returning to serverless Dart. If you are interested in this project, please hop on our Discord and let us know!

Running Locally

dart run lib/src/gen/server.dart runs the server. flutter run runs the client. Currently the only db is mongodb running remotely.

Notes

Dependencies to remove

• dockerfiles -- move to shorebird (will require github action?)
• bin/server.dart -- move into a shorebird tool?
• gen directory -- make autogenerated (shorebird tool?)
• dependency_override on shorebird -- remove
• dependency on json_serializable -- replace with shorebird annotation?
• remove or autogenerate fromDbJson and toDbJson methods

Expected dev flow

• Dev writes app, to add some backend adds @secure annotated methods.
• Adds @ShorebirdModel to classes to be stored in datastore.
• Runs shorebird run to run the app locally, including code generation?
• shorebird run integrates logs from all datastore, server and device.
• shorebird deploy deploys to shorebird cloud.

Easy cleanup

• Add color to user profile
• center views on large screens.

Known Twutter issues

• Separate per-user timelines.
• Profile pages
• Ability to follow/unfollow.
• Pull-to-refresh to timeline page
• Notifications
• Likes
• Reflaps
• Search
• /home and other routes don't actually check for login.

Known Shorebird issues

• No way to migrate the database when editing model classes.
• Image support (e.g. for profile images, media in flaps, etc).
• Session is not persisted locally.
• Sessions on the server are fake (and not persisted).
• Possible to create duplicate users.
• Timezones are not handled properly (server time should be utc and authoratative).
• Can't run more than one shorebird app on your machine at once (due to port conflicts).

Questions?

• Can we delete the backend directory?
• Can the compiler just decide what parts go where and find the async boundary to cut at?
• e.g. @trusted annotation
• Authorization should be expressed in the type system, e.g. AuthorizedContext.

Pain

• When you forget return Response.ok() from handler, you get: Error thrown by handler. type 'Null' is not a subtype of type 'FutureOr' package:shelf/src/middleware/logger.dart 30:62 logRequests...
• When you make a change to the server you want both it and the client to hotreload.
• No support for renaming fields in database.
• Want to see the output from client and server in one log?
• Had to set up my own custom docker images (there is only one flutter image, from cirrusci).
• Had to use the "flutter" image for the backend, because dart pub get can't fetch a pubspec.yaml that mentions flutter.
• Building docker files takes minutes
• Not clear how you have multi-repo packages with dependencies. When you pull them from git, relative path dependencies don't work.
• CORS headers are a pain. Can you force localhost to have them?
• Getting the docker image deployed with the correct ports was a pain.
• Separate docker images for client and server make for long builds.