hooker

Despite what the name suggests! This is a legitimate package for

Hook Oriented Programming in JavaScript. Node.JS and the Browser

Hook based programming is very common. From web frameworks like [WordPress](http://codex.wordpress.org/Plugin_API#Hooks.2C_Actions_and_Filters) & [Drupal](https://www.drupal.org/node/292) to Operating Systems like Windows! You can read more about it [here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hooking) and [here](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/467557/what-is-meant-by-the-term-hook-in-programming). Hooks can be implemented under the [Publish Subcribe Architecture](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publish%E2%80%93subscribe_pattern) or more generally under [Event Driven Architecture](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Event-driven_architecture). Hooks allow for loosely coupled code and ***eXtreme*** productivity and highly parallel teams.

This module brings hooks to the world of Client Side & Server Side JavaScript.

Installation

Node.js

npm install hooker

Browser

<script src = "hooker.min.js"> </script>

Usage

Basic Usage

Use hooker.register like subscribe, sub, on, etc.
Use hooker.trigger like publish, pub, emit, etc.

hooker.register('hooked', function (data) {
  console.log ('I am hooked to hooker', data);
});

hooker.register('hooked', function (data) {
  console.log ('I am also hooked to hooker', data);
});

hooker.trigger('hooked', {
  message: 'hooking up!'
});

//Outputs
'I am hooked to hooker', {message: 'hooking up!'}
'I am also hooked to hooker', {message: 'hooking up!'}

Data Passing

Each hook has some data passed to it. It can change this data for the next hook. All hooks have access to all the original data. Eg:

hooker.register('hooker', function (data, previousData) {
    console.log ('hooker1', data)
    console.log ('prevData', previousData);
    data.message = 'First!';
    return data;
})

//Outputs
'hooker1' {message: 'value'}
'prevData' [{message: 'value'}]



hooker.register('hooker', function (data, previousData) {
    console.log ('hooker2', data);
    console.log ('prevData', previousData);
    data.message = 'Second!';
    return data;
})

//Outputs
'hooker2' {message: 'First!'}
'prevData' [{message: 'value'}, {message: 'First!'}]



hooker.register('hooker', function (data, previousData) {
    console.log ('hooker3', data)
    console.log ('prevData', previousData);
    var myData = { message: 'Third!'}
    return myData;
})

//Outputs
'hooker3' {message: 'Second!'}
'prevData' [{message: 'value'}, {message: 'First!'}, {message: 'Second!'}]



var data = hooker.trigger('hooker', {
  'message': 'value'
});
console.log ('data', data);

//Outputs
'data' {
    final: {message: 'Third!'},
    previousData: [{message: 'value'}, {message: 'First!'}, {message: 'Second!'}]
}

API

Coming Soon

Technical details

How is this different than events?

In a traditional Pub Sub system, when an Event fires, all its listeners are fired simultaneously. Hooks are different because they are ordered. In the default configuration, hooks will be called one after another unless they are asynchronous.

Sequencing of Hooks

There will be an API later on for complete control over sequencing of when each listener will fire.

Performance

We hope to include a compiler which will inline most of the static hooking calls for much greater performance. Dynamic Hooks are a much more complex problem to solve and will be tackled in the issues.

Tests

We will include more tests using The Intern testing framework. For now you can just use test.js

Roadmap

• 0.1.0 Initial documentation and setup.
• 0.2.0 Basic synchronous hooks and simple API
• 0.2.1 Return Data.
• 0.3.0 Integrate theintern with testcases and test infrastructure.
• 0.4.0 Research on Asynchronous hooks and integration.
• 0.5.0 Add performance tests and publish results.
• 0.6.0 Public discussion and Community Involvement. ...
• 1.0.0 Launch of first version for production.
• 1.1.0 API to maintain order of hooks.

Contributing

Coming Soon. Till then, why don't you join the discussion?

Authors

Gaurav Ramanan

Copyright & License

(c) 2014 - 2015 RCorp. Code released under the Apache License.