I know I’m being noisy on this thread…
I have realised that I’ve made a mistake in working toward this decision from this angle. But I’m glad the conversation is moving.
At the time I thought this was a decision about which front end framework to use. I didn’t realise that this decision actually defines whether or not we dogfood our API between FE and BE. I should have taken more time to fully understand the implications when various people said ‘oh yeah the API will be fine’ along this discussion. I did not hear clearly that this enormous strategic decision was being made until after Matt’s PoC.
In hindsight I realise that the decision about whether to use our own API between FE and BE is a critical strategic decision that involves more than just technical knowledge of a framework. It requires a huge understanding of the product landscape, of the challenges in current use of the platform, or the direction we are going.
I also suggest that, in the decision-making style of Jeff Bazos, this is a Type 2 decision - a one-way door. I do not believe that it will be easy to turn around from this. I think we really really need to make the right decision here.
What we know now
- There is strong developer motivation to move to Reactive Rails
- Using Reactive Rails means the JSON API becomes a side project
Following on from this it is clear we have some big decisions to make regarding the strategic direction of our app and API.
So, following @rachel’s ever wise advice, I agree we should move this conversations to Toward a roadmap for our API.