Aptana Jaxer is a new product that allows you to write server side Ajax applications, and one of the features is a server side database API.
As soon as I saw this, I started to play with an unofficial wrapper that would enable me to use the Gears Database API and have it work on the server.
The Aptana team liked this idea, so they decided to implement the same result API as Gears uses, which enabled me to chop up my shim.
I find this interesting as it can allow:
- A way to run your Gears code on server, for example, if the user doesn't have Gears installed. In certain use cases, you could decide to run the code back on the server, and offer the user to "speed this all up by installing Gears"
- One API means that you can take tools and code that you have written on top, and have it automatically work on the server too. For example, we have already seen a GearsORM that works behind the scenes
Converging on APIs makes me feel good in the same way that deleting code does. I hope to see more of this in the future. The fewer the APIs that a developer has to learn, the better.
