Question

In this link: http://www.sencha.com/blog/spotlight-ext-js-customers/
Please scroll to the section :Why We Chose Ext JS
There is this line :

By using Ext JS, we lowered the cost
of developing a Web services API.

But I do not really get the explanation. How cost of developing a Web services API can be lowered by a client side framework?

Answer 1

I don’t think the explanation conveys what the author intended. I think they were enthusiastic about ExtJs’s AJAX APIs, which are easy to work with and can be called using a number of GUI components (which they mention).

The AJAX and component APIs do not create a server-side Web service API for you though, which their testimonial leads you to believe by saying:

This gives us the benefit of exposing
these same AJAX (JSON) calls, as a
Web services API, to our customers…
By using Ext JS, we lowered the cost
of developing a Web services API.

Well not quite, ExtJs doesn’t create a Web Services API for you; it creates a method of interacting with your custom REST (or whatever) API. Although maybe they meant that since ExtJs defines how the client should interact with the server, via their numerous components, their server-side services were easier to create. For instance, ExtJs makes it easy to work with REST webservices, and it defines expectations in callbacks, etc. So in ExtJs providing the client solution, it was easier to devise a server solution (the webservices API) given half of a contract.