Build your Chatbots like Rails Apps

Chat platforms are continuing to grow at an accelerated pace as product owners are expanding their services to chat. “Be where your users are” is a motto that many companies are practicing and chat is one of those platforms where it makes it easier for users to use these services.

As the chat platform expands, the availability of libraries, examples, and experience around these platforms is slow to catch up. Frameworks like Rails and Laravel help developers get their services onto the web in record speed but these types of frameworks do not exist for chat platforms. That lack of availability can leave chat developers to re-invent the common capabilities which slows down development on the chat platforms.

Why can’t we develop for chat platforms like we do for the web or for mobile? Why can’t we get further away from the metal and build more rapidly for these platforms.

I spend most of my days building for chat platforms and I feel like these libraries should exist. In fact, I have built several versions of these libraries and I want to share the knowledge I have gained.

In this session, we will look at how these chat platforms, Slack in particular, work and how we can take advantage of concepts we learned building traditional web applications and apply those to help build for chat platforms with less boiler plate code, less setup, and more familiarity. We will look at how we can build an MVC framework for chatbot platforms.

Transcript

1. Build Your RailsApps like CHATBOTS
3. A Brief In tr o CHATBOTS
4. A COMPUTER PROGRAM DESIGNED TO SIMULATE A CONVERSATION WITH HUMAN USERS CHATBOT
5. USER PLATFORM APP OPS CHANNEL /HELP { CHANNEL: ‘C1234’, USER: ‘U8324’, TEAM: ‘T4390’, MESSAGE: ‘/HELP’ } CHAT.POST_MESSAGE(‘HERE IS THE HELP YOU REQUESTED:’) OPS CHANNEL HERE IS THE HELP YOU REQUESTED:
6. USER PLATFORM APP CLIENT SERVER
7. J os eph WEIZENBAUM
8. J os eph WEIZENBAUM
11. ELIZA
12. SIRI 2 0 0 7
13. 2 0 0 1
16. RADIOHEAD IS ALWAYS AHEAD OF THEIR TIME™
17. imp or tant? CHATBOTS Why are
26. FAMILIAR
28. FAMILIAR
29. FAMILIAR LESS BARRIERS
30. MESSAGES SLACK TEAMS FACEBOOK
31. BE WHERE YOUR USERS ARE
32. PLATFORM SPECIFIC FUN STUFF BUSINESS STUFF
33. MO’ MONEY
34. FUN DEV CODE RUN BEEP-BOOP
35. built today? CHATBOTS How are
36. HOW SLACK WORKS A P P D I R E C T O R Y
37. HOW SLACK WORKS O A U T H W / S L A C K
38. HOW SLACK WORKS S C O P E R E Q U E S T
39. HOW SLACK WORKS N E W B O T U S E R !
40. USER PLATFORM APP OPS CHANNEL /HELP { CHANNEL: ‘C1234’, USER: ‘U8324’, TEAM: ‘T4390’, MESSAGE: ‘/HELP’ } HOW SLACK WORKS
42. JAVASCRIPT LIBRARIES
43. JAVASCRIPT LIBRARIES
44. be improved? CHATBOTS How can building
45. MOUNTING MIDDLEWARE CONTEXT ROUTER CONTROLLER TEMPLATES
46. MOUNTING > LISTEN TO SPECIFIC ENDPOINTS > INTEGRATE INTO EXISTING APP
47. MOUNTING
48. MOUNTING
49. ROUTER > DSL TO DEFINE ROUTES > FIND APPROPRIATE ROUTE > MIDDLEWARE
50. ROUTER D E F I N I N G R O U T E S
51. ROUTER C O N F I G U R E A P P
52. ROUTER
53. ROUTER C O N F I G U R E A P P
54. ROUTER D E F I N E C O N F I G U R AT I O N
55. ROUTER
56. ROUTER D E F I N E C O N F I G U R AT I O N
57. ROUTER
58. ROUTER D E F I N E C O N F I G U R AT I O N
59. ROUTER D E F I N E P L AT F O R M R O U T E R
60. ROUTER
61. ROUTER D E F I N E P L AT F O R M R O U T E R
62. ROUTER D E F I N E S L A C K R O U T E R
63. ROUTER
64. ROUTER D E F I N E S L A C K R O U T E R
65. ROUTER D E F I N E S L A C K A C T I O N R O U T E
66. ROUTER
67. ROUTER D E F I N E S L A C K A C T I O N R O U T E
68. ROUTER Finding routes F I N D I N G R O U T E S
69. ROUTER
70. ROUTER F I N D I N G R O U T E S
71. ROUTER F I N D I N G R O U T E S
72. ROUTER F I N D I N G R O U T E S
73. ROUTER Finding routes F I N D I N G R O U T E S
74. ROUTER M I D D L E W A R E
75. MIDDLEWARE > CHAIN RESPONSIBILITIES TOGETHER > EXTENSION POINTS > MODIFY CONTEXT > COMMON RUNTIME ON EACH REQUEST
76. MIDDLEWARE D E F I N I N G M I D D L E W A R E
77. MIDDLEWARE M I D D L E W A R E A P I
78. MIDDLEWARE C H A I N M I D D L E W A R E
79. MIDDLEWARE C H A I N M I D D L E W A R E
80. CONTEXT > VARIABLES FOR USE IN CONTROLLER > ONLY UPDATED IN MIDDLEWARE
81. CONTEXT
82. CONTROLLER > ACTION PER REQUEST > PREPARE RESPONSE(S)
83. CONTROLLER E X A M P L E
84. TEMPLATES > PLATFORM INDEPENDENT > SENT BACK AS A RESPONSE > INTERLACE DATA
85. TEMPLATES E X A M P L E
86. like Rails Apps CHATBOTS The tr adeo ff s on building
87. ROUTING A NICE BLACK BOX YOUR APP ROUTER CONTROLLERS TEMPLATES AUTHORIZATION LOW-LEVEL API PLATFORM LIBRARIES HIDE THE PLUMBING
88. FAMILIAR PATTERN MODEL VIEW CONTROLLER USER SEES USES MANIPULATES UPDATES
89. EVERYTHING HAS A PLACE VIEWS CONTROLLERS MODELS ROUTES > BUSINESS LOGIC > HANDLES PLATFORM REQUESTS > RUNS MIDDLEWARE > PASSES CONTEXT > CREATES CONTROLLER > RUNS ACTION > HANDLES REQUEST > PREPARES RESPONSE > RENDERS RESPONSE(S) > RETRIEVE DATA > UPDATE DATA > INTEGRATES DATA > PROVIDES RESPONSE
90. EXTENSION POINTS USER REQUEST PLATFORM APP ROUTER FINDS ROUTE MIDDLEWARE IS RUN CONTROLLER IS CREATED ACTION IS CALLED TEMPLATE IS RENDERED RESPONSE IS SENT USER RESPONSE
91. OVERKILL FOR SIMPLE BROADCAST PLATFORM GITHUB > CHAT.POSTMESSAGE
92. HARDER TO DEBUG > NOMETHODERROR: UNDEFINED METHOD `SHOW’ FOR NIL:NILCLASS > /.GEM/RUBY/3.1.0/GEMS/STRIPE-5.48.0/LIB/STRIPE/WEBHOOK.RB:104:IN `VERIFY_HEADER > /.GEM/RUBY/3.1.0/GEMS/JOURNEY-0.6.2/LIB/JOURNEY/CONTROLLER.RB:6:IN `SEND_ACTION' > /.GEM/RUBY/3.1.0/GEMS/JOURNEY-0.6.2/LIB/JOURNEY/ROUTER:34:IN `FIND_ROUTE’ > … > … > … > … > … > … > … C A L L S T A C K
93. Future ENHANCEMENTS
94. DIALOGUE
95. DIALOGUE TATSUIO/DIALOGUE
96. RANDOM ACCESS MEMORY USER CAN YOU SCHEDULE A MEETING? APP I SURE CAN. WITH WHOM? USER WITH TIM. APP GOT IT. WHEN? USER TOMORROW AT 2. APP DONE. I SCHEDULED A MEETING WITH TIM TOMORROW AT 2.
97. RANDOM ACCESS MEMORY CAN YOU SCHEDULE A MEETING? USER CAN YOU SCHEDULE A MEETING WITH TIM TOMORROW AT 2? APP DONE. I SCHEDULED YOUR MEETING WITH TIM FOR TOMORROW AT 2. CAN YOU SCHEDULE A MEETING? USER ACTUALLY CAN YOU MAKE IT FOR 3? APP DONE. I RE-SCHEDULED IT FOR TOMORROW AT 3.
98. RANDOM ACCESS MEMORY DETECT PARAMETERS ALLOW CHANGE
99. DISCOVERABILITY T R A I N I N G W H E E L S ARE YOU READY FOR THE MEETING? YOU CAN REPLY WITH ‘Y’ES OR ’N’O. APP USER YES. MEETING SCHEDULED! DID YOU KNOW YOU CAN REQUEST A RESCHEDULE BY REPLYING ‘RE-SCHEDULE’? APP
100. VALIDATION ANDY WANTS TO MEET WITH YOU TODAY AT 2. APP ARE YOU AVAILABLE? USER BLERG.
101. VALIDATION I’M SORRY ‘BLERG’ IS NOT AN ANSWER. APP ACKNOWLEDGE THE RESPONSE 1. YOU CAN RESPOND ‘YES’ OR ‘NO’ APP PROVIDE CORRECT OPTIONS 2. ANDY WANTS TO MEET WITH YOU TODAY AT 2. APP ARE YOU AVAILABLE? RE-ASK THE QUESTION 3.
102. SELECTION WHERE DO YOU WANT TO MEET MACKENZIE TONIGHT? APP USER 1. 1. COFFEE SHOP 2. RESTAURANT 3. BAR APP O P T I O N R E D U C T I O N
103. SELECTION OK. WHICH COFFEE SHOP? APP O P T I O N R E D U C T I O N 1. CAFE JOE’S 2. STARBUCKS ON MAIN 3. PERKATORY APP
104. RESPONSE SAMPLING YES APP OK APP CORRECT APP WRONG APP NOPE APP LOOKS GOOD APP 👍 APP ✌ APP THAT’S WHAT SHE SAID APP COOL APP
107. WHY ELIXIR? FAST 1. STATEFUL PROCESSES 2. HOT CODE RELOADING 3.
108. JUVET/JUVET
112. TATSU.IO
113. GO FORTH + CREATE BOTS
114. @JWRIGHT JWRIGHT JAMIE@BRILLIANTFANTASTIC.COM STANDUP.FM