caGrid on Lift

Lift is a framework for building web applications using the Scala language. This tutorial builds a Lift-based caGrid client with a browser-based user interface.

This tutorial assumes that you have a working knowledge of the Scala language. To find information about the Scala language or downloads, go to http://www.scala-lang.org.

Benefits of Lift

• Secure – Lift apps are resistant to common vulnerabilities including many of the OWASP Top 10
• Developer centeric – Lift apps are fast to build, concise and easy to maintain
• Scalable – Lift apps are high performance and scale in the real world to handle insane traffic levels
• Interactive like a desktop app – Lift's Comet support is unparalled and Lift's ajax support is super-easy and very secure
• Provides dependency resolution system that can obtain dependent jar files from Ivy repositories, like those used for caGrid and caBIG.
• Uses the Scala programming language

Benefits of Scala

• Interoperability – Scala runs on JVM and .NET CLR. Scala can call any Java Code. Java code can call scala code.
• Multi-paradigm – Has built-in support for a fusion of multiple programming paradigms, including Object oriented programming, functional programming, pattern matching, XML, concurrent programming using actors and continuations.
• Stronger type safety – Scala's type system can be used to avoid some types of low-level Java bugs such as null pointer exceptions.
• First class functions – Avoids the need for a separate dependency injection tool such as Spring.

Tutorial Goals

This tutorial will show you how to use Scala and Lift to build a web-based caGrid client. The features of this caGrid client will include:

• Phase 1
  • Discover the caGrid configuration automatically. The web client should require no manual configuration.
  • Synchronize with Grid Trust Fabric
  • Authenticate users against Dorian
  • Register new users with Dorian

• Phase 2
  • Discover grid services using the Index Service
  • Select a service to query

• Phase 3
  • Query grid Data Services
  • Save queries
  • Display results

• Phase 4
  • Authenticate against an authentication service