Creating a better translation for a node.js api to ruby

Question

My client has a nodejs SDK that fetches entries using a client that makes http requests. Their api looks like this:

 var Query = Client.ContentType('blog').Query();
 Query
 .where("title", "welcome")
 .includeSchema()
 .includeCount()
 .toJSON()
 .find().then((response) => resolvePromise etc...))

I have been tasked with mirroring this api but in an idiomatic way in ruby.

My earlier attemps at doing entries = client.entries({content_type: 'blog'}) were rejected. They now want me to now write an api that reads like this:

query = client.content_type('blog').query;
entries = query
 .where("title", "welcome")
 .include_schema
 .include_count
 .to_json
 .find;

Somehow this doesn't make sense to me (perhaps due to the level of misdirections involved) and I don't exactly know why.

If I write a method like content_type('content_uid') on my client class, I am writing a parameterized setter that already breaks rules.

If you are a rubyist, does this look like good api design to you? How can I improve on this?

Answer 1

That looks like a transliteration, and Class modeling and practice in Ruby is much different and holistic than JavaScript. The JavaScript idiom is more of a data representation than Ruby's OO classes and objects.

The plus to transliteration is it is shorter time to deliver a working product, but it won't be idiomatic Ruby in anything other than method names.

This looks like interaction with a query builder. One way you could attack this with a meta approach. Write ruby that implements the interface they want but uses the bridge pattern to already existing ruby query builder (Rails or Active Record).