ProtoRPC & REST

Question

I tried working with ProtoRPC and I really like how easily I can add methods, modify fields, and how solid and structured my app code looks with this.
Now I am playing with Backbone.js and like its idea; I see Backbone offers CRUD through REST as its preferable method to work with remote data source.
I know it allows me to redefine Backbone.sync to make it suitable for my needs.

Though, I am not sure what is a better approach to join Backbone and ProtoRPC together. I also don't think I need to make a RESTful server-side service if I have ProtoRPC and it works perfect.

Could you please share your ideas how to better make this all stuff work together and happy?

Answer 1

REST and RPC differ rather dramatically. I would advise against trying to marry a REST client to an RPC server.

With ProtoRPC, each method has a distinct endpoint. Each endpoint accepts a well-formed message via HTTP POST in the form of a JSON dictionary, and on success, returns a well-formed response dictionary and an HTTP 200. With REST, each endpoint should represent a resource or a collection of resources. Your HTTP verb should indicate the desired action, your request and response body should be populated with either a full representation of the resource or nothing at all, and the server's HTTP response code, even in the case of a success, should vary based on the result of the operation.

It looks like Backbone.js will let you slide on the HTTP verb, but otherwise, it expects a REST-compliant server. If you're intent on using Backbone.js, you might want to skip ProtoRPC and use something like appengine-rest-server.

Answer 2

I know it's a little late, but seems someone has implemented JSONRPC for Backbone.js:

Github (Docs)