Copyright 2013-2014, Javier Jimenez Villar
It is a project created by one of the founders of Tapquo, Javi Jimenez (aka @soyjavi) which encountered the problem that two of the frameworks that had been developed previously Lungo and TukTuk were completely decoupled and having similar functionality with duplicated code. So, knowing that Javi as person who hates duplication began studying within specification W3C something to help him create better WebApps, found the WebComponents HTMLTemplates, ShadowDOM ... but unfortunately nowadays are only drafts and browsers have not implemented it.
The paradigm "Atomic Development" is based on the big idea of Brad Frost with his Atomic Design, one approach to reuse and scale our "components". AD is really good but Brad just thought of the design context, Javi as a developer thinks in his world (code and code). Both are clearly expresses in this appointment:
We’re not designing pages, we’re designing systems of components. - Stephen Hay
The fact is that a WebApp not only consists of the design must have a business logic and to do that, Javi's thought is to have the whole system connected with the pub/sub pattern, so you can know when an Atom, Molecule or Organism have a certain action.
Yes, we know, you're a developer and not an alchemist ... but we wanted to based on the nomenclature of Brad to understand the concept. If you forgot your chemistry classes in high school, Brad teaches you very well in this picture:
In this way we consider that:
- Atom: It is the basic element of an Atoms WebApp such as
input,button,ul,img... - Molecule: The grouping of several atoms and these can communicate. A clear example would be a
Searchthat binds the atomslabel,inputandbutton. - Organisms: The grouping of several atoms and molecules, which also can communicate. For example we could speak of a
Headerwhich holds for example the moleculesNavigationandSearch. - Templates: The idea of a template is to create a basic scaffolding for a determinate section of your Atoms WebApp, you know that all Apps often have similar sections: Login, Lists, Charts ... so it is necessary to create and use the templates and provide to the community.
- Pages: Brad talks about Pages and Javi call it Systems ... but the concept is the end result of the chemistry of your atoms, molecules, organisms and templates.
Atoms fully developed with CoffeeScript language and its development tools have been used as NodeJS and Grunt. So if you don't have these applications installed, please install first NodeJS and then type the following commands:
npm install -g coffee-script
npm install -g grunt-cli
Now you can download the project code and get all the necessary NPM modules:
git clone https://github.com/tapquo/atoms.git my-atoms
git submodule foreach git pull origin master
npm install
Once we have our computer ready, just you only need GruntJS which have already scheduled tasks:
- Test Library with Jasmine &
- Compile Library in debug mode
- Uglify Library for production mode
- Process and minify stylus stylesheets
You can run the process grunt but we recommend you use grunt watch to run only the necesary tasks.
We do not want you to be a reputed Alchemist, simply internalize these concepts and begin to study the new code that Javi is writing every day and help you on your way to creating a better system for creating custom WebApps, escabalables and community.
This is opensource, so feel free to fork this project to help us create a better tool. All source code is developed with CoffeeScript and Stylus, but don’t worry we worship clean-code so you can quickly get to make your own modifications in it.https://github.com/tapquo/atoms
Atoms is licensed under MIT licensed. See LICENSE.md file for more information.