A talk by the Brandfolder CTO, Ryan Urabe, about how Brandfolder uses JSON and Postgres to simplify it's back-end system.

1. Ryan Urabe, CTO
ryan@brandfolder.com
@rurabe
CSAwesomefest
September 23, 2013

2. Tech Stack
Client side
Server side

3. Tech Stack
JS
Client side
Server side

4. Tech Stack
Client side
Server side

5. Tech Stack
Client side
Server side

6. Tech Stack
Client side
Server side

7. Tech Stack
Client side
Server side

8. JSON
Client side
Server side

9. JSON
JSON
Client side
Server side

10. JSON
Client side
Server side

11. JSON
SQL+JSON
Client side
Server side

12. Schema
Brandfolder
Logos Images Documents People Fonts Colors Videos Press Texts
• name
• desc
• name
• desc
• name
• desc
• name
• bio
• phone
• email
• twitter
• linkedin
• name
• desc
• googID
• otherID
• name
• desc
• cmyk
• rgb
• pnt
• hex
• name
• desc
• url
• name
• desc
• url
• title
• body

13. SingleTable Inheritance
Brandfolder
Assets
• type
• name
• desc

14. SingleTable Inheritance
Brandfolder
Assets
• type
• name
• desc
• phone
• email
• twitter
• linkedin
• cmyk
• rgb
• pnt
• hex
• url
• googID
• otherID

15. SingleTable Inheritance
Brandfolder
Assets
• type
• name
• desc
• phone
• email
• twitter
• linkedin
• facebook
• aboutMe
• cmyk
• rgb
• pnt
• hex
• hsla
• url
• source
• googID
• fontsID
• adobeID
• otherID
• etc
• etc

16. SingleTable Inheritance + JSON
Brandfolder
Assets
• type
• name
• desc
• data =>
JSON

17. Code
class Asset < ActiveRecord::Base
attr_accessible :name,
:description
include DataDelegator
# the secret sauce!!!
end
class Video < Asset
attr_accessible :url
data_delegate :only=> [:url]
# moar secrets!!!
end

18. Alternatives
• HSTORE
– Supported by ActiveRecord > 4.0
– Can’t nest
• BATF
– Works with any data store
– Need to serialize
– Can’t manipulate or query in the DB

19. Extending Postgres JSON
• Index the JSON
• Query records by values stored in the JSON

20. More Postgres + JSON
• Postgres can also serialize records
natively, returning a string of valid JSON.
– Does not require the instantiation of Ruby objects
– FAST

21. Even more
• You can installV8 in Postgres and write
custom query functions in Javascript
– Awesome
– Web developers are already familiar with it

22. Ryan Urabe, CTO
ryan@brandfolder.com
@rurabe
CSAwesomefest
September 23, 2013