Requiring API keys to JSON services for publicly available data is leading us down the unfortunate path to screen scraping and HTML parsing. The justification for requiring API keys is that abuses of these data APIs are rampant and without the keys there would be no way to deal with bad behavior. Rate limiting is one approach but it is easily gamed. We need a better solution.

Required keys make it much harder for developers to learn new things. I recently created a sample application for Typesafe Activator called Reactive Stocks which fetches publicly available tweets and then does a sentiment analysis on the tweets. The goal of the sample is to quickly teach developers about how to build Reactive applications. If each developer had to go through the process of setting up Twitter API keys just to get the app running, many would give up. Most developers prefer to instantly see something working and then deconstruct it to learn how it works.

Next week at OSCON 2013 in Portland I’ll be leading a hands-on workshop on Monday at 1:30pm where we’ll build a modern web app with Play Framework and Scala. Here are the details:

6 Minute Apps! Build Your First Modern Web App

The web application landscape is rapidly shifting back to a Client/Server architecture. This time around, the Client is JavaScript, HTML, and CSS in the browser. The tools and deployment techniques for these types of applications are abundant and fragmented.

This summer Bruce Eckel will be hosting the Scala Summit in Crested Butte on August 19 - 21. I’ve been to many of Bruce’s events and they are my favorites. The hallway conversations at regular conferences are always the best and most educational part, so why not have a conference that is just the interactive bits? The OpenSpaces style is only interactive. The agenda at an OpenSpaces conference is determined by the attendees. This leads to rich discussions and collaborative project hacking. I usually bring a project I want to work on with others and then find people who want to write some code with me. This year at the Scala Summit I’ll be working on some Scala template apps for Typesafe Activator. Hopefully you can join me!

Over this past weekend I built a little tool for Play Framework app developers which auto-refreshes an app in Chrome when the source code or static assets change.

Check out a video demonstration:

For information on how to set it up, check out the project on GitHub: https://github.com/jamesward/play-auto-refresh

The move towards Single Page Apps and RESTful services open the doors to a much better way of securing web applications. Traditional web applications use browser cookies to identify a user when a request is made to the server. This approach is fundamentally flawed and causes many applications to be vulnerable to Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) attacks. When used correctly, RESTful services can avoid this vulnerability altogether. Before we go into the solution, lets recap the problem.

This Wednesday (April 24, 2013) I’ll be presenting an Intro to Play Framework at the Boulder Area Scala Enthusiasts meetup. Also, Dustin Whitney will be presenting an Intro to Scala.

Hopefully see you in Boulder!

This week I’m at Devoxx UK and Devoxx FR presenting about Play Framework. Here are the sessions:

• Tuesday March 26 @ Devoxx UK: Mobile Apps with HTML5 & Play Framework - With Nicolas Leroux
• Wednesday March 27 @ Devoxx FR: 6 Minute Apps! Build Your First Modern Web App - With Nicolas Leroux
• Thursday March 28 @ Devoxx FR: Play Framework vs. Grails Smackdown - With Matt Raible

It’s going to be an awesome week!

This week I’ll be in Canada presenting an Introduction to Play Framework:

• Toronto Scala Meetup on Tuesday, March 19
• Ottawa Scala Enthusiasts on Wednesday, March 20
• Scala Montreal Meetup on Thursday, March 21

I’m looking forward to meeting our Scala northerly neighbors!

Tonight I will be doing a question and answer session at the Seattle Scala User Group. So bring your Scala, Akka, and Play Framework questions! Hope to see you there.

Tonight (Feburary 21, 2013) I will be presenting at the Utah JUG about Client/Server Apps with Play Framework, HTML5 and Java. Here is the session description:

The web application landscape is rapidly shifting back to a Client/Server architecture. This time around, the Client is JavaScript, HTML, and CSS in the browser. The tools and deployment techniques for these types of applications are abundant and fragmented.

This session will teach you how to pull together jQuery, LESS, Twitter, Bootstrap, and some CoffeeScript to build the Client. The Server could be anything that talks HTTP, but this session will use the Play Framework.