Who does not love seeing exciting creativity? A hot new fashion or an exciting new car on the scene always brings emotion to an audience. It is not only about being new, but simply experiencing creativity. It often starts with an idea. As a next step, the idea digitizes into a functional prototype, model, or mock-up. This is always a critical step as it brings something conceptual into reality. It is also one of the hurtles encountered by front-end developers trying to prototype something early without anything to support it on the back-end. However a newer JavaScript library/framework has enabled developers to replicate the back-end logic in the browser. It is called Kakapo.js. One of the things that makes this library intriguing is the ability to easily build functional mock-ups that only need a browser to run.
A New Era of Protoyping Your Digital Product?
The addition of Kakapo.js, although still in beta, gives yet another tool in the npmjs.com arsenal. If you have not been following some of the clever front-end frameworks and libraries on npm, you are missing the boat. The npm site, abbreviation for Node Package Management, has been home to popular JavaScript frameworks such as Bootstrap, Angular, Backbone,...etc. The Kakapo library provides features such as database capabilities, request, response and routing. All of this running just within the browser with no back-end running. The crossover to production is a snap too. Developers can simply deactivate the framework when moving to production. Hector Zarco is the main developer of Kakapo (btw, Kakapo is a flightless parrot bird in New Zealand. Cute!). His goal was to create the following:
1. Create reliable and consistent mock-ups that run just in a browser.
2. Provide all the tools needed to prototype Web apps in a browser without the need of the back-end being ready to use.
3. No http server needed that only returns junk data unrelated to the prototype. You can use legitimate meta-data.
4. You are no longer restricted to static payloads. This means the mock-ups are more dynamic.
In all, it is pretty intriguing seeing Kakapo in action with the database feature automatically handling the ID generation, or creating a fake pagination handling, which is based in the actual requested page. It will even do a CRUD Api with the Kakapo database. In terms of geek speak, Kakapo uses the WeakMap object, a collection of key/value pairs in JavaScript, with keys weakly referenced. For those not familiar, WeakMap originally came out with the ECMAScript 6 core.
Okay great, but what does this mean for YOUR business?
As digital managers, investors, and business stakeholders are concerned, seeing is believing. Show me the goods, and we can discuss the next steps. In looking further at Kakapo, it becomes more apparent that there are more benefits to the framework than the ones mentioned by Zarco:
1. Reduced Prototyping Costs – We are only talking one language here: JavaScript. We do not need other language programming resources (ie. Back-end Developer, DB Developer, ESB Developer,...etc.) to help build a prototype with working functionality.
2. Reduced Time for Prototype Functionality – Everything needed to create the mock-up functionality is in the framework. No need to reinvent the wheel. Also, no dependencies on scheduling other resources to capture back-end functionality.
3. Full Work Flow Demonstration – It gives an ability for your audience to envision a full solution working. This is important for those who are looking to “sell” their concept or MVP to an audience. It also key for those just simply involved in UX to see the actual work flow happening for a newer design.
Looking Forward...
Finally, for those of you wondering, “Hey, any chance this will work with JavaScript based Node.js for back-end coding?” Remember, at the beginning we said this was in beta...but to answer your question, yes, they are working on getting Node.js compatibility along with Swift too. If you want to learn more about Kakapo.js, go checkout https://devlucky.github.io/kakapo-js.
---------------------------------------------------------------
About The Author:
Brad Beiermann is a nationally recognized technology executive, author, and speaker with specialization in e-commerce, Agile, mobile, and start-ups such as Cimstrat.com, ProfessorString.com, HienoteDirectory.com, and others. He has considerable experience as a digital technology management consultant with Fortune 500 companies and the entrepreneurial community. He can be reached at bradb at cimstrat dot com.
