MiApple

Reinventing the clunky MP3 player as the iconic iPod (credit: wikipedia) Apple didn’t invent the MP3 player. A company called SaeHan did, when it started selling a basic 32MB solid state player for $400 in 1998. What Apple did was refine that ugly, hard to use MP3 player at two levels. The first was to create an easy to use, reliable software for the player. The second was to turn it into a finely crafted, and aesthetically appealing piece of industrial design. Today that original click wheel iPod looks dated. But its user friendly interface and appealing design was responsible for setting a new benchmark for consumer products. That iPod and its later incarnations have sold over 390 million units till date, and laid the foundation for the Apple of today. This philosophy of refining existing technologies with a blend of user friendly interfaces and great design, rather than inventing a new technology, is now almost a trademark of Apple, and a major factor in its success. Take the mobile phone. It wasn’t invented by Apple either. But the first iPhone released in 2007, changed the idea of what a cellphone can do, how it can interact with us, and what it can look like. The Time Machine is another example. Backup software existed on the Windows platform (like GoBack) but Apple made the jump to combine hardware and software into a seamless experience that automated backups without us even having to think about it. This applies even to software. Take widgets in a phone’s notification system. Android had it long before it eventually showed up on iOS. They say ‘Imitation is the best form of flattery.’ As Steve Jobs said in 1996: “Picasso had a saying: ‘Good artists copy; great artists steal,’ and we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas.” I think what Picasso meant is that many artists first learn their craft by copying and mastering the strokes of another artist they look up to. Once they are able to perfectly reproduce the style, they use that as a foundation to develop their own style and strike out on their own. Look at it that way, I don’t see anything wrong in Apple copying and refining the technology of its competitors, as long as it does not infringe any patents. After all, it’s the users who come out on top as they keep getting better products. In any case, copying is a two way process. Android for instance, now has fingerprint access, which was first introduced to the world as Touch ID on the iPhone. Naturally, many companies have tried to copy Apple’s design philosophy, By the time Apple starting suing them, it may have been too late. Samsung for one, had established a name for its elegantly designed phones, and is actually pricing some of its phones higher than iPhones. But Samsung hasn’t quite got right Apple's mix of software and hardware. And that’s when Xiaomi entered the scene. This Chinese startup’s goal seems to be to replicate the Apple model. Starting a few years ago, these guys have literally copied everything from Apple, from product finish, website design, branding simplicity, and look and feel of MiUI (modified Android user interface). I think one reason Apple may not have sued Xiaomi so far is because they aren’t yet in the US. Lookalikes: Xiaomi’s Mi4 and Apple’s iPhone SE Xiaomi has one strong differentiator that makes it stand out from the crowd. Unlike Apple as well as the other Androids, Xiaomi offers high end specs at affordable prices. And that’s what led to my first encounter with Xiaomi. For me, the main issue with Apple has always been its price. I would prefer to pay less, and have a shorter upgrade cycle, rather than be stuck with outdated hardware. (My iPad 3 for instance, is 32 bit, and Apple will be discontinuing 32-bit apps in iOS 11.) If not for Apple’s perfect blend of software and hardware plus my investment in apps from Apple’s AppStore, I would most probably have gone over to Android lock, stock and barrel. In fact, I did switch to Android (a Nexus 4) when my iPhone 4 began to have an issue with its speaker. I got a Nexus 4 but I wasn’t used to Android, and when I got a chance for a refurbished iPhone 5 at a bargain price, I returned to Apple. That iPhone 5 lasted a couple of years before its display crashed unexpectedly. I had kept the Nexus 4 as a second phone, and exchanged it for a Mi4i from Xiaomi as I had been hearing about this Apple clone, and wanted to try it out. But I again switched back to Apple when my wife gifted me an iPhone 6s+. Her explanation was it was the first time she was able to get me a gift I value. The Mi4i was with me for nearly two years. For ₹10000 ($155), it was a pretty decent phone. But it developed a couple of issues as time went by: its battery would run out pretty quick, and it couldn’t handle VoLTE too well. The latter was a deal breaker for me as I use the Jio network, which needs VoLTE to make calls. So I exchanged the Mi4i for the Redmi Note 4, which is one of Xiaomi’s hottest sellers in India. I haven’t had time to try out the Redmi but what little I have seen of it is pretty impressive. Its all metal finish looks pretty sleek and feels compact. The modified Android works like iOS, so there’s not too much of a learning curve for an iPhone user. iOS-inspired MiUI The Redmi even has some advantages over my iPhone 6S+. Like its fingerprint scanner works even if my finger is wet. Unlike the Touch ID on my iPhone 6S+ which consistently rejects my sweaty fingers. The higher price of the iPhone does show in its far more capable camera and so on. But what I find interesting is how Xiaomi is trying to apply the Apple philosophy of taking existing technology and trying to make it better. Take this business of screen captures for instance. iOS has this system by which you press the home button and power button simultaneously to capture the screen. Later they came up with this ‘assistive touch’ feature which allows the use of a floating menu ball that can be customised to have among other things, a screen capture button. Android followed faithfully in the footsteps of iOS and soon enabled screen captures by pressing the power and volume buttons (though I could never remember if it was the ‘volume up’ or ‘volume down’ button that had to be pressed). This was later supplemented with the more easier pulldown screenshot widget. Xiaomi has taken this a couple of steps further. It recently introduced the Quick Ball, a floating menu which is similar to iOS’s assistive touch. Better still, they have also configured MiUI to take a screen capture with a three finger downward swipe. There’s even a scrolldown screen capture feature which allows you to capture long scrolling pages on one long screenshot. Unfortunately this scrolling screenshot feature isn’t working on my Redmi. And that’s where the difference with Apple shows up. If something doesn’t work in Apple, you can google it, and find a solution posted online by one of Apple’s many knowledgeable users. But Xiaomi is too young and too niche to have such a vast base of users who can support each other. They do have an MiUI forum similar to Apple forums but I couldn’t find even a reference to the scrolling menu that wouldn’t work. Xiaomi does have a long way to go. These tiny UI tweaks are just an indication of the lengths to which Xiaomi is going to work into its genetic makeup Apple’s philosophy of fine design and user friendly technology. In some ways, the student is excelling the master. Take the smartwatch category where Apple Watch rules. This is one Apple device that has left me cold. It’s not just the price that puts me off. The thing has to be charged every night. I have had enough of charging devices, what with my two phones, iPad, my Mac’s keyboard and tracking pad, and my bluetooth headset. And that’s how I opted for the Mi Band. Feature wise, it is not in the Apple watch league. But it costs just ₹1999 ($31), comes with a tiny screen to display the time, keeps track of my steps, alerts me to incoming calls, checks my heartbeat, and even works as a silent vibrating alarm on my wrist. The icing on this cake is I need to charge its battery just once a month. In short, the Mi Band is simple, user friendly, and just works. Now where have I heard that before? Or look at the Apple headset that comes with every phone. It does its job efficiently but it’s pretty basic. There’s no noise cancelling for instance. Most Xiaomi phones are low budget and don’t come with headsets. So I ordered a pair of in-ear headphones from the Xiaomi website for ₹999 ($15). The moment I held those headphones in my hand was when I realised that Xiaomi had gone beyond imitation and developed their own style. The metallic and black plastic polished finish of the headset, the tough nylon braided tangle free cord, the cable winder, the perfect fitting earbuds… they all showed an attention to detail that was Applesque. A little research on the Xiaomi website showed that I was not the only one who was impressed. This particular headset had won the Red Dot design award in 2015. The quality is not just restricted to design but also extends to functionality. The headphones cancelled outside noise, and though I’m no audiophile, I can say the sound quality is definitely better than the standard Apple headset, which at $29 is almost twice as expensive. Going beyond imitation: Xiaomi’s Red Dot Design award winning headset, and its much copied power bank. Xiaomi’s attention to quality was also visible in another product I tried out, the Mi Power bank. It’s again a finely crafted piece of metal, and I recommended one for my brother a couple of years ago. He travels a lot and uses it regularly, and it’s still going strong. Ironically, many other Chinese brands have started copying the look of Xiaomi’s Powerbank to such an extent that its sales have been affected. Life has come around a full circle with the imitator becoming the imitated.

When imitation becomes acceptable

SEC v. Terraform Court Filing, retrieved on February 16, 2023, is part of . You can jump to any part in this filing . This is part 25 of 38. HackerNoon’s Legal PDF Series here E. mAsset Transactions were Security-Based Swaps 97. Terraform's Mirror Protocol permitted the creation of assets called "mAssets"— that "mirrored" the price of securities. The mAssets were created when, based on the smart contract coded into the Terraform blockchain, an investor provided a payment equal to 150% of the value of the security that the mAsset mirrored. In return, the investor received an mAsset equal to the value of the security that the mAsset was designed to mirror, such as the stock of Apple, Inc. 98. Once an mAsset was created, if the price of the referenced security rose so that the collateral rate was no longer satisfied, the investor was required to deposit additional collateral based on the value of such increases or the investor's collateral would be liquidated. 99. The investor could terminate the transaction by making a final payment in the form of the mAsset (also called "burning" or returning the mAsset). At the point of the termination of the transaction, the investor was entitled to receive payment back in the form of the entire collateral. 100. For example, an investor could create an "mAAPL" mAsset by making a payment equal to at least 150% of the value of Apple stock into a smart contract on the Mirror Protocol. In return, the investor received "mAAPL." If the actual price of Apple stock rose in value, the investor was required to deposit additional payments such that the investor's collateral equaled 150% of the now increased value of Apple, or else the collateral would be liquidated and a portion paid back to the investor. The investor could terminate the transaction by paying the mAAPL back to the smart contract in the Mirror Protocol, at which point the investor was entitled to receive a payment back of all of the investor's collateral. 101. Each transaction offering or selling an mAsset thus constituted a security-based swap. First, each transaction provided on an executory basis for an exchange of a payment, based on the value of a security. That is, an investor provided a payment in the form of collateral equal to at least 150% of the value of the security (e.g., Apple stock) that the mAsset mirrored, in exchange for an mAsset (e.g., mAAPL). 102. Second, each transaction transferred, between the investor and the Mirror Protocol, the financial risk associated with a future change in the value of a security without also conveying a current or future direct or indirect ownership interest in the underlying security. This is because the mAsset (e.g., "mAAPL") tracked the rise or fall in price of the underlying security, (e.g., Apple stock), but did not convey any direct or indirect interest in the underlying security (i.e., the investor in mApple did not own any direct or indirect interest in Apple stock even though the value of her mApple tracked the change in value of Apple stock). 103. The masset transactions were generally offered, sold, or effected through the Mirror Protocol (and not a registered national securities exchange) with or for persons who were not eligible contract participants, in violation of Securities Act Section 5(e) and Exchange Act Section 6(1). Continue Reading . Here About HackerNoon Legal PDF Series: We bring you the most important technical and insightful public domain court case filings. This court case 1:23-cv-01346 retrieved on September 12, 2023, from is part of the public domain. The court-created documents are works of the federal government, and under copyright law, are automatically placed in the public domain and may be shared without legal restriction. sec.gov

mAsset Transactions Were Security-Based Swaps: How Terraform Violated the Securities Act

Moby-Dick; or The Whale, by Herman Melville is part of HackerNoon’s Book Blog Post series. You can jump to any chapter in this book Chapter 18: His Mark here. CHAPTER 18. His Mark. As we were walking down the end of the wharf towards the ship, Queequeg carrying his harpoon, Captain Peleg in his gruff voice loudly hailed us from his wigwam, saying he had not suspected my friend was a cannibal, and furthermore announcing that he let no cannibals on board that craft, unless they previously produced their papers. “What do you mean by that, Captain Peleg?” said I, now jumping on the bulwarks, and leaving my comrade standing on the wharf. “I mean,” he replied, “he must show his papers.” “Yes,” said Captain Bildad in his hollow voice, sticking his head from behind Peleg’s, out of the wigwam. “He must show that he’s converted. Son of darkness,” he added, turning to Queequeg, “art thou at present in communion with any Christian church?” “Why,” said I, “he’s a member of the first Congregational Church.” Here be it said, that many tattooed savages sailing in Nantucket ships at last come to be converted into the churches. “First Congregational Church,” cried Bildad, “what! that worships in Deacon Deuteronomy Coleman’s meeting-house?” and so saying, taking out his spectacles, he rubbed them with his great yellow bandana handkerchief, and putting them on very carefully, came out of the wigwam, and leaning stiffly over the bulwarks, took a good long look at Queequeg. “How long hath he been a member?” he then said, turning to me; “not very long, I rather guess, young man.” “No,” said Peleg, “and he hasn’t been baptized right either, or it would have washed some of that devil’s blue off his face.” “Do tell, now,” cried Bildad, “is this Philistine a regular member of Deacon Deuteronomy’s meeting? I never saw him going there, and I pass it every Lord’s day.” “I don’t know anything about Deacon Deuteronomy or his meeting,” said I; “all I know is, that Queequeg here is a born member of the First Congregational Church. He is a deacon himself, Queequeg is.” “Young man,” said Bildad sternly, “thou art skylarking with me—explain thyself, thou young Hittite. What church dost thee mean? answer me.” Finding myself thus hard pushed, I replied. “I mean, sir, the same ancient Catholic Church to which you and I, and Captain Peleg there, and Queequeg here, and all of us, and every mother’s son and soul of us belong; the great and everlasting First Congregation of this whole worshipping world; we all belong to that; only some of us cherish some queer crotchets no ways touching the grand belief; in that we all join hands.” “Splice, thou mean’st splice hands,” cried Peleg, drawing nearer. “Young man, you’d better ship for a missionary, instead of a fore-mast hand; I never heard a better sermon. Deacon Deuteronomy—why Father Mapple himself couldn’t beat it, and he’s reckoned something. Come aboard, come aboard; never mind about the papers. I say, tell Quohog there—what’s that you call him? tell Quohog to step along. By the great anchor, what a harpoon he’s got there! looks like good stuff that; and he handles it about right. I say, Quohog, or whatever your name is, did you ever stand in the head of a whale-boat? did you ever strike a fish?” Without saying a word, Queequeg, in his wild sort of way, jumped upon the bulwarks, from thence into the bows of one of the whale-boats hanging to the side; and then bracing his left knee, and poising his harpoon, cried out in some such way as this:— “Cap’ain, you see him small drop tar on water dere? You see him? well, spose him one whale eye, well, den!” and taking sharp aim at it, he darted the iron right over old Bildad’s broad brim, clean across the ship’s decks, and struck the glistening tar spot out of sight. “Now,” said Queequeg, quietly hauling in the line, “spos-ee him whale-e eye; why, dad whale dead.” “Quick, Bildad,” said Peleg, his partner, who, aghast at the close vicinity of the flying harpoon, had retreated towards the cabin gangway. “Quick, I say, you Bildad, and get the ship’s papers. We must have Hedgehog there, I mean Quohog, in one of our boats. Look ye, Quohog, we’ll give ye the ninetieth lay, and that’s more than ever was given a harpooneer yet out of Nantucket.” So down we went into the cabin, and to my great joy Queequeg was soon enrolled among the same ship’s company to which I myself belonged. When all preliminaries were over and Peleg had got everything ready for signing, he turned to me and said, “I guess, Quohog there don’t know how to write, does he? I say, Quohog, blast ye! dost thou sign thy name or make thy mark?” But at this question, Queequeg, who had twice or thrice before taken part in similar ceremonies, looked no ways abashed; but taking the offered pen, copied upon the paper, in the proper place, an exact counterpart of a queer round figure which was tattooed upon his arm; so that through Captain Peleg’s obstinate mistake touching his appellative, it stood something like this:— Quohog. his X mark. Meanwhile Captain Bildad sat earnestly and steadfastly eyeing Queequeg, and at last rising solemnly and fumbling in the huge pockets of his broad-skirted drab coat, took out a bundle of tracts, and selecting one entitled “The Latter Day Coming; or No Time to Lose,” placed it in Queequeg’s hands, and then grasping them and the book with both his, looked earnestly into his eyes, and said, “Son of darkness, I must do my duty by thee; I am part owner of this ship, and feel concerned for the souls of all its crew; if thou still clingest to thy Pagan ways, which I sadly fear, I beseech thee, remain not for aye a Belial bondsman. Spurn the idol Bell, and the hideous dragon; turn from the wrath to come; mind thine eye, I say; oh! goodness gracious! steer clear of the fiery pit!” Something of the salt sea yet lingered in old Bildad’s language, heterogeneously mixed with Scriptural and domestic phrases. “Avast there, avast there, Bildad, avast now spoiling our harpooneer,” cried Peleg. “Pious harpooneers never make good voyagers—it takes the shark out of ’em; no harpooneer is worth a straw who aint pretty sharkish. There was young Nat Swaine, once the bravest boat-header out of all Nantucket and the Vineyard; he joined the meeting, and never came to good. He got so frightened about his plaguy soul, that he shrinked and sheered away from whales, for fear of after-claps, in case he got stove and went to Davy Jones.” “Peleg! Peleg!” said Bildad, lifting his eyes and hands, “thou thyself, as I myself, hast seen many a perilous time; thou knowest, Peleg, what it is to have the fear of death; how, then, can’st thou prate in this ungodly guise. Thou beliest thine own heart, Peleg. Tell me, when this same Pequod here had her three masts overboard in that typhoon on Japan, that same voyage when thou went mate with Captain Ahab, did’st thou not think of Death and the Judgment then?” “Hear him, hear him now,” cried Peleg, marching across the cabin, and thrusting his hands far down into his pockets,—“hear him, all of ye. Think of that! When every moment we thought the ship would sink! Death and the Judgment then? What? With all three masts making such an everlasting thundering against the side; and every sea breaking over us, fore and aft. Think of Death and the Judgment then? No! no time to think about Death then. Life was what Captain Ahab and I was thinking of; and how to save all hands—how to rig jury-masts—how to get into the nearest port; that was what I was thinking of.” Bildad said no more, but buttoning up his coat, stalked on deck, where we followed him. There he stood, very quietly overlooking some sailmakers who were mending a top-sail in the waist. Now and then he stooped to pick up a patch, or save an end of tarred twine, which otherwise might have been wasted. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved April 2022 from Melville, Herman,2001. Moby-Dick: or The Whale. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2701/2701-h/2701-h.htm#link2HCH0018 This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at , located at . www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

Moby-Dick; or The Whale: Chapter 18 - His Mark

Moby-Dick; or The Whale: Chapter 9 - The Sermon

Moby-Dick; or The Whale, by Herman Melville is part of HackerNoon’s Book Blog Post series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . Chapter 8: The Pulpit here CHAPTER 8. The Pulpit. I had not been seated very long ere a man of a certain venerable robustness entered; immediately as the storm-pelted door flew back upon admitting him, a quick regardful eyeing of him by all the congregation, sufficiently attested that this fine old man was the chaplain. Yes, it was the famous Father Mapple, so called by the whalemen, among whom he was a very great favourite. He had been a sailor and a harpooneer in his youth, but for many years past had dedicated his life to the ministry. At the time I now write of, Father Mapple was in the hardy winter of a healthy old age; that sort of old age which seems merging into a second flowering youth, for among all the fissures of his wrinkles, there shone certain mild gleams of a newly developing bloom—the spring verdure peeping forth even beneath February’s snow. No one having previously heard his history, could for the first time behold Father Mapple without the utmost interest, because there were certain engrafted clerical peculiarities about him, imputable to that adventurous maritime life he had led. When he entered I observed that he carried no umbrella, and certainly had not come in his carriage, for his tarpaulin hat ran down with melting sleet, and his great pilot cloth jacket seemed almost to drag him to the floor with the weight of the water it had absorbed. However, hat and coat and overshoes were one by one removed, and hung up in a little space in an adjacent corner; when, arrayed in a decent suit, he quietly approached the pulpit. Like most old fashioned pulpits, it was a very lofty one, and since a regular stairs to such a height would, by its long angle with the floor, seriously contract the already small area of the chapel, the architect, it seemed, had acted upon the hint of Father Mapple, and finished the pulpit without a stairs, substituting a perpendicular side ladder, like those used in mounting a ship from a boat at sea. The wife of a whaling captain had provided the chapel with a handsome pair of red worsted man-ropes for this ladder, which, being itself nicely headed, and stained with a mahogany colour, the whole contrivance, considering what manner of chapel it was, seemed by no means in bad taste. Halting for an instant at the foot of the ladder, and with both hands grasping the ornamental knobs of the man-ropes, Father Mapple cast a look upwards, and then with a truly sailor-like but still reverential dexterity, hand over hand, mounted the steps as if ascending the main-top of his vessel. The perpendicular parts of this side ladder, as is usually the case with swinging ones, were of cloth-covered rope, only the rounds were of wood, so that at every step there was a joint. At my first glimpse of the pulpit, it had not escaped me that however convenient for a ship, these joints in the present instance seemed unnecessary. For I was not prepared to see Father Mapple after gaining the height, slowly turn round, and stooping over the pulpit, deliberately drag up the ladder step by step, till the whole was deposited within, leaving him impregnable in his little Quebec. I pondered some time without fully comprehending the reason for this. Father Mapple enjoyed such a wide reputation for sincerity and sanctity, that I could not suspect him of courting notoriety by any mere tricks of the stage. No, thought I, there must be some sober reason for this thing; furthermore, it must symbolize something unseen. Can it be, then, that by that act of physical isolation, he signifies his spiritual withdrawal for the time, from all outward worldly ties and connexions? Yes, for replenished with the meat and wine of the word, to the faithful man of God, this pulpit, I see, is a self-containing stronghold—a lofty Ehrenbreitstein, with a perennial well of water within the walls. But the side ladder was not the only strange feature of the place, borrowed from the chaplain’s former sea-farings. Between the marble cenotaphs on either hand of the pulpit, the wall which formed its back was adorned with a large painting representing a gallant ship beating against a terrible storm off a lee coast of black rocks and snowy breakers. But high above the flying scud and dark-rolling clouds, there floated a little isle of sunlight, from which beamed forth an angel’s face; and this bright face shed a distinct spot of radiance upon the ship’s tossed deck, something like that silver plate now inserted into the Victory’s plank where Nelson fell. “Ah, noble ship,” the angel seemed to say, “beat on, beat on, thou noble ship, and bear a hardy helm; for lo! the sun is breaking through; the clouds are rolling off—serenest azure is at hand.” Nor was the pulpit itself without a trace of the same sea-taste that had achieved the ladder and the picture. Its panelled front was in the likeness of a ship’s bluff bows, and the Holy Bible rested on a projecting piece of scroll work, fashioned after a ship’s fiddle-headed beak. What could be more full of meaning?—for the pulpit is ever this earth’s foremost part; all the rest comes in its rear; the pulpit leads the world. From thence it is the storm of God’s quick wrath is first descried, and the bow must bear the earliest brunt. From thence it is the God of breezes fair or foul is first invoked for favourable winds. Yes, the world’s a ship on its passage out, and not a voyage complete; and the pulpit is its prow. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved April 2022 from Melville, Herman,2001. Moby-Dick: or The Whale. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2701/2701-h/2701-h.htm#link2HCH0008 This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at , located at . www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

Moby-Dick; or The Whale: Chapter 8 - The Pulpit

TL;DR — I wrote an entity mapper in TypeScript that leverages abstract classes and works great with SharePoint. This technique probably applies equally well to other back end domains. TypeScript is a great enabler for this kind of tool. History If you just want to get to the code, skip this section. For years, we SharePoint developers have been writing applications that view SharePoint, in part, as a database. For the many of you that don’t know much about it, SharePoint is a collaboration platform that supports all kinds collaborations stuff, social things, workflows, doc management and related yadda yadda yaddas. It also has this notion of a “List” which acts a lot like a database table. MSFT provides APIs that lets us perform the usual CRUD operations against them. List items, however, are really higher level entities than DB tables. They can be secured via API, they can be tagged socially (ratings and likes). They can be approved, involved in workflows and other yadda yadda yaddas. SharePoint provides a pretty functional UI around list items as well. In the early days of SharePoint client-side dev, we tended to use like , put together and managed by the ever-so-clever Marc D Anderson. Without his tool, you’d write a lot of $.ajax() calls to endpoints, parse an XML or JSON response, hope it was well-formed, etc. People still use it. It’s great. tools SPServices About two years ago, before Microsoft released “SharePoint Framework” (or SPFx, their newest a shiniest SP dev tool), I started working with TypeScript. There were no abstract classes at the time and that affected how I work with it. Basic Models and Entity Mapping When I had to write an end user feature that worked with SharePoint lists, I would start off with a kind of model object, informed by the list’s columns. We might create a SharePoint list list to support a scrolling news ticker as follow: : string Title : multiple lines of text Description : Date Effective Date : Date Expiration Date : number Display Sequence Here’s a dead simple TypeScript model for that list: The little screen shot above show that a “list helper” object is able to perform all of those operations against “news items.” To enable this, I had to extend the model with new functionality. I don’t have a good intermediate step from the basic model above to the current state of my code base, so this listing is a bit of a humdinger: Let’s break it down into smaller bits: The top of the file imports a few objects and utility classes: : home to some static utility classes used further down the model EntityHelper : Denotes whether some properties should be read AND written to SharePoint or just read. For instance, we don’t want to write back SharePoint IDs. EntityReadWriteAccess : This contains a collection of properties that are common across a family of object (news items, featured news, favorties and the like). AbstractViewPortItem defines a handful of common interfaces. SFInterfaces: Here’s the next chunk: First, it defines an interface for the model at line 1 in the listing . Note that it defines an interface that extends another interface, “ ”. This is important since any entity that implements that interface can now use all of the SharePoint list operations shown above. (If you’d like to detour into an explanation about abstract classes, I posted a little while back) ISharePointListBackedEntity try this blog post + video combination It defines the core model properties, such as Title, Effective and Expiration Dates and such. The entity’s constructor invokes the super’s constructor at line 22 and then assigns useful default values to the properties. Here’s the final chunk: This section of code defines a static method, . As you’ll see, the generic SP List Helper uses this metadata to do the mapping at runtime between the SharePoint list’s columns and this entity’s properties. GetSharePointMetadata() There’s a lot going on. Let’s first look at line 10. This defines the actual mappings and does so by populating an array, colMappings. Here’s a typical mapping: This defines a mapping between a SharePoint list column named “ID” and a model property, “SharePointID”). At runtime, the code populates the SharePoint “ID” list column into the model’s “SharePointID” property for read operations.The optional 3rd parameter, “EntityReadWriteAccess.READ_ONLY” indicates that this mapping is ignored when writing back to SharePoint. (The default is both Read and Write, that’s why you don’t see it specified on the other properties). The low-level mapping is accomplished via a collection of static methods on the EntityMapper class. There is one associated method for each SharePoint data type. These mapplet functions understand how to translate the JSON response of an integer to a TypeScript number, a SharePoint JSON MMS object into an array of strings, etc. There is one final mandatory link — the name of the SharePoint list itself. This is accomplished on line 8. There are a few final things going on here beyond straight mapping. At line 4, I define a “console logging label”. This is used by the helper to emit log messages with a label that distinguishes it from other helper’s that might logging out to the console. Lastly, there is this line: At runtime, it’s helpful to create an empty instance for the purposes of validating the integrity of the mapping. That validation is implemented at run-time by these functions: The generic entity helper invokes these validation functions at run-time to help reduce the common problem of working with case-sensitive field names and tricky spellings that arise when you’re forced to match text strings in JSON to class properties or other variables.These validation functions will throw an error if we try to map a class property, “xyzzy” to a SharePoint list column that doesn’t exist, or vice-versa. It will catch an invalid mapping like this: JavaScript : Good EntityHelper.GetIntegerMapping(“ID”, “SharePointID”, …); Bad: EntityHelper.GetIntegerMapping(“ID”, “SharepointID”, …); In the “good” case, ID maps to SharePointID. In the bad case, SharepointID is mis-spelled. The runtime validation logic detects this problem and warns you about it. The fundamental idea is that we can create a model.ts file that connects the model to the SharePoint list in a more declarative way. By setting up the array with both the mappings (e.g. “VP_EffectiveDate” ← → “Effective Date”) as well as the appropriate serialization / deserialization function, we no longer need to concern ourselves with parsing JSON, constructing urls to correctly hit REST endpoints and the like. There is one source of truth as far as the entity mapping is concerned. colMappings Being able to validate mappings at runtime is the icing on the cake. Practical Effects Here’s a short video showing what it’s like to work with tools like this: There are several really nice consequences that come of using abstract classes like this: Strongly typed results. Automatic mapping to SharePoint list columns. Consistent CRUD+ operations. It’s always “helper.SaveItem()” or “helper.DeleteItem()”. Fixing a bug for one method fixes it for all. I recall working on a project where I’d made a common error in one of those early factory mappers. I had to make the same update to a dozen factories, introduced a new error in a couple while I was doing it, etc. Adding a new capability for one model entity means that all model entities get to enjoy it. For instance, when I started off with this, I was only focused gets, saves and deletes. At one point, I needed to set security. I enhanced the core splisthelper object with a security function and now all models can be secured. Sensible Next Steps This entity mapping code evolved organically and was a great learning experience. It works well, but there are some obvious opportunities to improve it. It would be nice to do something like this: Basically, use TypeScript Decorators to specify entity mappings rather than the static method I’m using. </end> <postscript> I recently published a book on TypeScript! It’s free and you can access it here: https://www.gitbook.com/book/pagalvin/yet-another-typescript-book/details </endForReal>

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