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Closed 10 years ago.
I keep hearing the term "service" a lot, but I have a vague understanding of it. Could someone explain what a service is citing some practical examples?
It depends on the context. Very abstractly speaking, a service is some sort of program that offers some function, but the internals of which are completely opaque. I.e., a web service is something running somewhere on the web, having some sort of API which you can contact to get or submit some data. What exactly it does is none of your business, it just offers its service to you. On a system, for example a Windows Service may be a program running persistently in the background, doing something. Inside an application, you may have a service layer, which offers some functionality which you can use in the rest of the application through an API, but how exactly it works is irrelevant.
That's in contrast to, e.g., a function or library or class, which you usually import, manipulate, use more directly. A service is more self-contained, offering only its functionality with nothing much in the way of introspecting it.
macdonald's is a service. you hand over some money, they give you a bigmac.
politicians are a service. you hand them your vote, they hand back lies and steal your lunch money, then charge you for doing so.
in computing terms, you hand over some data (a number, a string of text, etc..), the service takes that data, does something with it, and returns a result.
e.g. google translate is a service. google search is a service. godaddy's DNS registrar is a service. a computing service is no different than a real-world service.
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Closed 9 years ago.
I am working on a team which is making a website similar to, say, Instagram. Similar in the sense that we are employing similar technologies in the back end, but the concept has no relation to Instagram.
Anyway, I was reading this article here which describes Instagram's compete stack:
What Powers Instagram: Hundreds of Instances, Dozens of Technologies
I'll be honest - I was quite overwhelmed by the number of different technologies they employ. What I want to know is that is it necessary to start with so many different and specific technologies to make something which can sustain a lot of traffic, and continue to work just fine?
Currently, we are working with an Apache web server, MySQL database, Django/python framework, HTML/CSS/Javascript front end, and Ajax to make things more dynamic - you know, the works. We are aiming to utilize Amazon Web Services to host our project. Our project is being built on Linux machines (Ubuntu).
Do we need to use a lot of other software packages/tools to ensure our website is top-notch? It is fully functional from our perspective. This may seem like a novice question, but we are novices relative to Instagram developers.
Start simple. Specialize as you have need.
Instagram is a MASSIVE property, and serves a lot of traffic under uncommon circumstances. Don't take their infrastructure as the way to start things. Start with what works, and then as you find things don't work, replace them.
As web projects grow and mature over time, they will often incorporate more and more specialized technologies and architectures to accommodate their specific needs. Don't take their infrastructures as a template, but rather, as a lesson to expect to grow and evolve your infrastructure as your product evolves.
Measure everything. Know where you need to get better. Iterate. GOTO 1. :)
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Closed 10 years ago.
We have a new extension that we built for many months and is live on the webstore.
Our extension communicates with our API and we get many fake installs daily - installs that we see in our API and not in the web store.
After many sleepless nights - We suspect that a robot with chrome runs our extension and deletes the local storage every time - this is only our best guess, although we are not sure if it's likely because the IP of each installation is different.
There are many more details - so If you would like to help and need further info let me know what and I can elaborate.
I'm not familiar with this Chrome extension API, BUT, if someone earns money by letting people install your extension then I'd check that lead.
Eventually, the clients (many IPs you say) that apparently "install" your extension report this event by making an HTTP request - again I only presume!
Saying that, it might be that someone controls many computers which simply initiate these HTTP requests to "report" a (fake) installation, thus making money.
If that is the case, and someone does make money out of your extension (could be also INDIRECTLY) then check the affiliate code or whatever, this is even an issue to report to Google itself, they can certainly investigate that.
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Closed 10 years ago.
There are limited v2 endpoints really. Its painful to switch gears when working with 2 versions of your API at the same time especially because each version returns different output formats. Imagine writing code when one api you call returns xml and another api you call returns json :)
Can you support json output for your original api which will make life little easier and I do not have to remember which ones send xml versus json?
Also, when are new endpoints planned to be released for sharing features?
The v2 API is in beta and thus is going to be in flux for a little while. We're working through the initial release based on developer feedback and usage. We're going to release a /collaborations endpoint in addition to other sharing capabilities eventually, but we're going to optimize the current available endpoints first.
Per the documentation, you can append '.xml' to API requests to have XML returned, which will let you work with v1 easier if you choose to develop against both simultaneously.
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Closed 11 years ago.
I wanted to used standard TCP/IP connection using MYSQLconnection. Is this the best way?
Whether or not this is the best way depends on your environment. For many cases, this would not be the correct way to go about things, because the person running the client program would have direct access to your database. You would also be required to open your firewall to allow anybody running your application to have access to the database. Not only security problems, but if you wanted to change the queries being run to perform a particular action, then you would have to ensure that everyone updated their client program. An alternative way of doing something like this that may work better, would be to create a web server (XML, SOAP, JSON, etc.) that your VB.Net program called to complete various actions. That way the VB.Net program would not have to connect to the database directly, which would allow both for increased security, as well as allow you to change things on the server side such as table structure without the VB.Net program being aware.
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Closed 12 years ago.
Why we need RIA ? I didn't see any benefits from RIA？ it need a plugin to run it, this will bring headache to its user, compared to the regular html page.
Thanks.
RIA, or Rich Internet Applications, came as a ready solution to the problem of slackened Web browsing and low customer conversion rate.
RIA offers richer functionality by making use of HTML widgets available on standard browser-based Web applications.
Rich Internet Applications are providing users a multi-dimensional experience.
With the use of RIA, a part of the application runs directly within the users’ Web browser, allowing automatic navigation. It is a major improvement on traditional HTML and has transformed the static database of a website to a multi-functional online experience. Now, shoppers can see, “feel” and even try products online. RIA ensures large scale business returns and repeat visits, giving a boost to online business.