Show HN: Rasta.js, anonymous domainless key-value store for frontend JavaScript

It also adds a timestamp, and allows for a callback. Perhaps it should be clarified that this relies on making a web call to their server (even if that is the only way this could possibly be done).

pitra9• 15 years ago

Thanks. I should be more clear about that.

The api is defined under WHY? tab, btw.

pkulak• 15 years ago

Do keys need to be globally unique?

pitra9• 15 years ago

Everything is in the same namespace.

moonlighter• 15 years ago

It would be a heck of a lot more useful if it were namespaced, like S3's buckets. Let folks put into those buckets whatever they want, but make the buckets in your datastore unique, based on the domain, referer, etc.

HoLyVieR3• 15 years ago

Unless there is something I don't understand, how can this even be slightly reliable or useful, when everyone can read any key and write or replace any key at any moment ?

pitra9• 15 years ago

It's not meant to be reliable.

Nor is it meant to be secure. It's a direct connection to a data store.

guptaneil2• 15 years ago

I guess I could see some usefulness in a quick weekend prototyping to get a persistent app up and running.

Groxx• 15 years ago

but then why would this be better than, say, localStorage, which is local? The only purpose to this is semi-persistent cross-domain information storage. It's crazy to use an external JSON-P service to store tweetable-sized messages, when you've got megabytes locally with precisely the same key/value setup. Or, if you're handling older browsers, cookies will get you several KB.

NHQ• 15 years ago

And also replace a value with normal, arbitrary javascript...

Still, neat idea.

bouncingsoul• 15 years ago

You might want to look at http://openkeyval.org if you weren't aware of it. Exact same idea.

(HN discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1846088)

catshirt• 15 years ago

awesome! like someone else said, this is a great tool for prototyping, and likely other projects. tinydb is pretty cool as well. http://tinydb.org/

hamrickdavid• 15 years ago

Good use of Twitter's new Bootstrap framework http://twitter.github.com/bootstrap/

pbreit• 15 years ago

Would it make sense for "set" to be a POST? Or does that compromise "easy"?

HoLyVieR3• 15 years ago

It would make sense in theory, but in practice you can't make POST request to a JSONP API. So that's why you have to stick to GET request.

tchvil2• 15 years ago

You can make a cross domain POST with an IFRAME but would not get the response directly. Having to use parent.postMessage, the window.name hack or polling with JSONP depending on the browser. Possible then, but not so easy.

marcamillion• 15 years ago

I guess I am not geek enough, but the description for this is SOOO opaque. I have no idea what this does - and I am a web developer!

Can someone explain, in simple English, what this is about and why it's good?

Udo• 15 years ago

It's a javascript library that essentially consists of two functions (get and set) to retrieve and store some arbitrary content identified by a key string. That content is stored on the author's server though you can override the domain name and put in your own.

I think this combination of a lightweight library and free online storage could be useful for people who would like to have a static website with no functionality or storage whatsoever on their server. It could also be used in scenarios where JS code is used as glue between one or more websites and the user (for example in browser plugins).

amasad• 15 years ago

There is a typo on the "FOR DUMMIES" section, "This is a key-value date store"

iamtherockstar• 15 years ago

I think there's a pretty limited use for this, but it's definitely an interesting experiment if nothing else. I found it so cute that I decided I'd implement a really simple server endpoint for this.

https://github.com/rockstar/selassie

It's not backed by anything but memory, but that's why I said "simple".

nikcub• 15 years ago

He has his own backend, written in js and also backed by redis within the package:

https://github.com/errorjs/Rasta.js/blob/master/web.js

Show HN: Rasta.js, anonymous domainless key-value store for frontend JavaScript

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