Deprecate BW::HTTP

[clayallsopp]

This is an idea I've been playing around with and I saw it voiced in the mailing list today.

AFNetworking is the defacto abstraction for URL handling, and it's a split between silly and irresponsible to allow folks to use an inferior abstraction over the plumbing. So for the next release(s) we deprecate, and remove it by 2.0.

FWIW, I don't use BW::HTTP in my apps, so I don't have a vested interest in maintaining or debugging it.

cc @qrush

[joshsmith]

I agree with this, and as someone relatively new to RM it is very confusing to people in the community. I was forced to decide between using BW::HTTP and AFMotion, and think correctly went with the latter. But the fact that I had to make that decision is not great.

[stefanvermaas]

So what's the status on this? Will this be deprecated? Or is this still an idea?

[qrush]

I am still +1 for this. I wish I would have used AFN from the start.

Sent from my iPhone

On Nov 9, 2013, at 4:42 AM, Stefan Vermaas notifications@github.com wrote:

So what's the status on this? Will this be deprecated? Or is this still an idea?

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub.

[stefanvermaas]

Ok cool. I'll keep this in mind!

[jamonholmgren]

+1

[supermarin]

As I unfortunately don't have time to maintain that, and it isn't the best code ever - feel free to deprecate whenever the world is ready.

[supermarin]

@clayallsopp today i've played / tested an API, and for some basic http auth testing, bubble wrap seemed a bit more straightforward than AFMotion (tried afmotion first).

Not sure if we should really remove the http module, at least for beginners.

[andyjeffries]

I'd agree with @supermarin - I think BW makes it really easy to get started and is a useful step for incoming new developers.

[supermarin]

I might rewrite it using NSURLSession, it should be way less code

[ahmeij]

I found a nice write-up how to switch from BW to AF here: http://jamonholmgren.com/refactoring-from-bw-http-to-afmotion It doesn't look very complicated to start with

[jamonholmgren]

Their APIs do map very well. There are some kinda weird things with AFMotion (actually AFNetworking), like re-using the same callback block for three events during file upload, but it's pretty easy.

AFMotion::Image.post("http://foo.bar.com/") do |result, form_data, progress|
  # Called before posting so you can append your file.
  if form_data
    form_data.appendPartWithFileData(avatar_data, name: "avatar", fileName:"avatar.png", mimeType: "image/png")
  elsif progress
    progress_percentage = (progress * 100.0).round(1)
    # update UI with progress %
  elsif result.success?
    p result.body.to_s
  else
    App.alert(result.error.localizedDescription)
  end
end

[clayallsopp]

Here's a proposed deprecation pattern for BW::HTTP, which is optimized to prevent people continuing to use BubbleWrap 1.x just for HTTP compatibility (not an unreasonable desire):

• Extract BW::HTTP into its own gem (bubble-wrap-http? motion-http?)
• Until 2.x, bubble-wrap gem will require the HTTP gem but print deprecation messages on each use
• After 2.x, remove HTTP gem dependency
• require 'bubble-wrap/http' will forever print a message saying it has been removed and you need to add the new gem

cc @colinta & #354

[colinta]

This seems like a good plan - if deprecation is the route BW is gonna take, I think we need to go ahead and take it, know-what-I-mean? It's still getting heavy usage.

Maybe we can add to that message a recommendation to use AFNetworking/AFMotion.

[jamonholmgren]

I like extracting to its own gem. It's obviously still popular even though it's demonstrably inferior to AFMotion. So, the people that care can give it first-class attention, and BubbleWrap development can continue unabated.

[qrush]

Huge 👏 for this. I'd be 👍 for a message to use AFNetworking instead
somewhere.

On Wed, Apr 16, 2014 at 1:43 PM, Clay Allsopp notifications@github.comwrote:

Closed #308 #308 via
b413626b413626
.

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com//issues/308
.

[clayallsopp]

@qrush done, added it in the warning output

BW 1.6.0.rc1 is on RubyGems with the deprecation, please try it out: http://rubygems.org/gems/bubble-wrap/versions/1.6.0.rc1

[rromanchuk]

@clayallsopp great work. Very good decision.

[alloy]

I concur, great maintainer and user-education decision, @clayallsopp!

[cyberfox]

Ergh; I understand the decision, but I just put a bunch of code using BW::HTTP in an app I'm building, and am not looking forward to tearing it out. I guess one advantage would be that hopefully AFNetworking can be used on an async queue, instead of just a runloop?

[qrush]

Honestly, you shouldn't ship an app you're going to use for non-recreational purposes with BW::HTTP. AFNetworking is just so much better and battle tested. You owe it to yourself and your users to use AF.

[jamonholmgren]

@cyberfox: I wrote a blog post that gives you a jump start on refactoring from BW::HTTP to AFMotion.

http://jamonholmgren.com/refactoring-from-bw-http-to-afmotion

Hope it helps.

[cyberfox]

I appreciate that BW::HTTP is being extracted as a gem. In trying to use AFMotion, I have not found it to be a suitable replacement for my straightforward uses. It's possible that more 'advanced' uses may paradoxically work better. Thanks for extracting BW::HTTP instead of just getting rid of it.

[cyberfox]

Happily with rubymotion-community/afmotion@06fd55cc and rubymotion-community/afmotion@12caa46f my simple use cases are functioning with AFMotion. Thanks very much @clayallsopp !