[Mailman-Developers] Web UI redux

[Barry Warsaw]

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On Mar 5, 2008, at 8:36 AM, A.M. Kuchling wrote:

> On Tue, Mar 04, 2008 at 05:57:42PM -0500, Ethan Fremen wrote:
>> Barry said in an earlier message that there's no web UI for mm3: my
>> first impulse is to start on something there.
>
> I'm interested in working on a REST-style interface for controlling
> Mailman.  One thought: should the web UI be written atop such a REST
> interface?  Pro: it would nicely enforce decoupling the UI and the
> Mailman engine, and be a good test that the REST interface supports
> enough functionality.  Con: adds an extra layer.

I'm really keen on exploring this because I do think the decoupling  
will be a big win.  It'll let us distribute a turnkey, standalone u/i  
for those who want something working out of the box, but it'll also  
let integrators use the core Mailman engine in their own sites.  And  
it won't limit you to just Python web frameworks.

> (A sketch of the REST interface is in the wiki at
> http://wiki.list.org/display/DEV/REST+Interface .  It's written from
> the 2.1/2.2 point of view; I don't know if mm3 reworks the basic
> objects so much that the REST interface no longer applies.)

I think if we're careful we can get pretty close.  Ideally, we'd have  
the same REST api for both, which would give us a nice migration path,  
but I don't yet know if that's feasible.

MM3 does have a more elaborate data model than MM2, but OTOH,  
everything is formally declared in Zope-style interfaces (and  
thoroughly tested... woohoo!).

One thing that we have to figure out is how to represent all the  
metadata that currently lives in the Mailman.Gui package of 2.1/2.2.   
I think any web interface acting through the REST api will want that  
basic information, e.g. the brief and detailed descriptions of the  
mailing attributes (the VARHELP).  I'm sure there's a clear way to  
publish that through the REST api, but it might have an impact on the  
format used.  I like JSON a lot, but html or xml might be more  
amenable to that type of data.  OTOH, it's all read-only so it might  
make sense to split it into two trees of information.

- -Barry

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