Got a great idea that could pull in millions of users on Facebook? That neat app that thousands of salesforce.com customers would give their eye teeth for? Need to pull together an app that would get data from Amazon and location information from Google maps? Or an app that gets data from digg and eBay? Need information from RSS feeds and wikis?

One technology that is showing promise to get all of this done is that of “mashups”. A mashup is a website or application that combines content from more than one source into an integrated experience. Content used in mashups is typically sourced from a third party via a public interface or API. Many people are experimenting with mashups using Microsoft, Google, eBay, Yahoo, Flickr and facebook APIs. [Source: Wikipedia].  Most mashups do more than just integrate services and content; in general, they benefit users in a way that’s better and different than the individual services that they use.

Combining data and code from third-party sources has enabled mashups that add creativity and functionality to web applications. However, browsers are poorly designed to pass data between domains, forcing developers to abandon security for functionality. In addition, mashups on the browser are usually written in Javascript, which could lead to the possibility of malicious code getting executed on your desktop. One way to get around this is to use what are known as server side mashups. We call them Smashups.

Essentially, there are two primary mashup styles – server side mashups (Smashups) and client side mashups. Smashups integrate content and data on the server, while a client side mashup integrates content and data on the client. In a smashup, the server acts as a proxy between the web application on the client and the other web site(s) that takes part in the mashup. Client side mashups mostly use Javascript within a browser and are meant primarily for an interactive user experience. In a Smashup, the client side mashup logic is moved to the server.

Smashup Advantages.

One of the biggest challenges of building a mashup is contending with the basic security protection provided by the browser security sandbox. To protect against malicious attacks, most browsers allow XMLHttpRequest (the basic Ajax Javascript object) to communicate only with the site domain. If the mashup requires a service that is not the server of origin, there’s no way to access it.  In a smashup, the server and not the Javascript code in the browser accesses the service on the other website. Therefore, the smashup is not subject to the browser security sandbox and can access the other site.
There are some other inherent advantages to using a smashup:

• The proxy used in a smashup can act as a buffer between the client and the other website; protecting the client from problems on the other site.
• In cases, where the other site sends back a large amount of data, the server can break up the data into more manageable chunks and send it to the client.
• The data returned from the other site can be cached on the server. Subsequent requests from the client can then be served up from the server reducing unnecessary requests to the other server and increasing the speed of delivery to the client.
• Data returned from the other site may need to be transformed into a different format. The server can transform the data into a format such as JSON, making it easier for the browser to handle the data.
• Security requirements can be handled much more easily server to server using secure protocols. The server could make concurrent and synchronous calls to many data sources at the same time. Most browsers limit the number of concurrent XMLHttpRequests to a small number.
• On the server-side, the smashup can massage the data to be cross-browser compliant 

Building Smashups quickly and easily. 

Regardless of whether you are considering client side mashups or smashups, the basic problem is that creating a mashup is not easy without being an expert programmer. Smashups have advantages in execution, but they are not easy to set up. You still need to be able to code in PHP, ASP.NET, Java or some programming language. You need to understand and be comfortable with Javascripting and understand Web Services.
 

Introducing zeroCode. Here’s your easy, quick way to build server side mashups. The biggest advantage you have is that you can build smashups with absolutely no coding skills. No looking at green screens or futzing around with command lines. A simple point and click environment enables you to build even complex smashups, truly zero coding. Add to that the fact that zeroCode is a completely on-demand environment (www.zerocode.com). That means you have nothing to download and nothing to install. You build on the web and you deploy on the web.

Try it out and see how easily you can build a smashup with zeroCode.

Thanks for the feedback on zeroCode. “Great platform, but your UI sucks….” We hear you. We think zeroCode is a great platform for creating web apps and we are very proud of it. But we are also aware that it’s not the greatest user interface. I know, I know – How can we say zeroCode is meant for non-programmers and then use really techy jargon?

Well, we are in the process of a big facelift for the zeroCode UI. We are changing the terminology within the Design Environment to make it a lot more user-friendly and a lot less techy. We are building lots more tutorials, docs and context-sensitive help. Our UI team is in the process of creating a much more simplified navigation paradigm.

We’ll be rolling all this out soon. So watch out for the new and updated UI for zeroCode and keep that feedback coming in.