2010-12-23 Developers Conference Call

Date

23/12/2010

In Attendance

• You

Agenda

• Quickly review previous meeting minutes (5 min)
• 1.8 Update (20 min)
• Webservices 1.0 discussion meeting (60 min)
• After-action review & next week's agenda (5 min)

Minutes

Real-time notes: http://notes.openmrs.org/devcall20101223

Web services 1.0 talking points

1. End goal?
   1. How many services, how many objects, etc
2. Soap vs REST
   1. both?
   2. Is there a framework that will help us combine them?
3. Baked into API, or separate module?
4. Any good examples of object+transaction based APIs out there?
   1. Atlassian JIRA API
   2. Atlassian Confluence Remote API
5. Authentication methods?
   1. Session-capable (OAuth 2.0 , OpenID)
   2. (REST module uses stateless basic auth through request now)
6. Publish a WSDL /WADL (Why Contract First?) - (Interesting Debate on Contract First Vs Code First )

Outcomes

Transcripts

• Backchannel IRC transcript
• Audio recording of the call: Listen online or download - available after the meeting

Notes

Last Week's TODOs:

• Need a ticket to test new 1.8 widgets in FormEntry (Burke is creating)
• Figure out how to mavenize modules

1.8 Update

• Beta release will be Jan 6 2011
• Darius has a few tickets left that should be done by then
• Speed difference for location search is a red flag, but it is due to a built-in 400ms delay on all searches
  • For the sake of performance testing, set the delay to zero
  • Argument against that: trying to mimic a realistic environment, not optimal
• TODO: reassign TRUNK-1707 (jQuery UI themerolling)
• TODO: increase resources for OpenMRS servers (test and apps), get OSU involved
• TODO: Wyclif will email Zabil and cc: Darius re: 1.8 installer

Web Services

• End goal?
  • 0.1
  • Requirements
  • Within a module (not built into core)
  • Must allow API methods to be easily exposed to web services
  • Must allow modules to easily expose methods through web services (or at least head down this path)
  • Should limit/avoid business rules in web service layer – i.e., thin layer exposing API methods
  • Must support secure connections
  • Methods are documented on the wiki
  • Strategy
  • Not covering full API
  • Not 100% final – will need to allow for us to fail and iterate
  • Not part of core
  • Not necessarily using the same objects as the API – i.e., introduce DTOs
  • How many services, how many objects, etc?
  • Authentication
  • R (get & search) methods (concept, person, user, locations, cohorts, ...)
  • CRUD methods (patient, encounter, obs)
  • Export "patient" (with their encounters, obs, etc.)
  • 0.2
  • HL7
  • CRUD for metadata
  • Run rule(s)
  • Get reports for a time period
• Strategy and road map?
  • Web service-a-thon? If so, when?
  • What's the plan to move Web Services forward? Who is going to do what?
• Soap vs REST vs. both?
  • Is there a framework that will help us combine them?
  • Burke: SOAP++ for heavy work, ReST++ for quick & dirty
  • Darius: wants ReST and SOAP requests to have the same underlying method returning the same data
  • Sunny: SOAP = WSDL, ReST = WADL (Spring supports ... ReST?)
  • Summary: would like both (i.e., pseudo-REST by exposing methods as simple HTTP calls)
• JSON vs XML vs. both?
  • SDMX-HD = XML
  • Summary: would like both
• Baked into API, or separate module?
• Any good examples of object+transaction based APIs out there?
  • Atlassian JIRA API
  • Atlassian Confluence API (http://confluence.atlassian.com/x/3QI)
  • Facebook API
  • Twitter API
  • Google Health
  • GDATA for Google Health exposes a subset of CCR
  • Microsoft Healthvault
• How is authentication handled?
  • Authentication methods?
  • REST module uses stateless basic auth through request now
  • Session-capable – i.e., token-based
  • Authenticate to get token
  • Token sent to all subsequent calls
  • Authenticate as user
• Publish a WSDL (Why Contract First?? )
  • Publish a WSDL
  • Why Contract First? http://bit.ly/gll6cp
  • Interesting Debate on Contract First Vs Code First - http://bit.ly/eMXE8Q