Meteor.js - A full-stack Javascript framework.

Hey all,

At my company, I recently gave a short presentation on Meteor.js. As you've gathered from the title, Meteor.js is a full-stack Javascript-only web and mobile application framework. Meteor is incredibly quick to get up and running. In just about 5 lines of code, you can have your app running locally (on Windows too!). I've fallen in love with Meteor and while I am by no means an expert (or even a journeyman), I have found a bunch of great resources along the way. I figured I'd post here for anyone else who might be interested in checking out what I think could be the definitive JS framework.

Fortunately, the Meteor.js documentation and tutorial is fantastic. The tutorial is your basic run of the mill to-do list app, but highlights some of Meteor's great features, most notably the reactive UI (made possible by its UI library, Blaze, which is similar to React, Angular, or Knockout). In addition, you'll catch a quick introduction to MongoDB.

After tooling around with the to-do app, you might find yourself wondering, where do I go from here? If you've fallen in love like I did and are willing to drop $30 on an excellent book, check out Discover Meteor, which is consistently updated and a fantastic companion for any curious developer.

One of the things that intimidated me about Meteor initially was its lack of structure. Fortunately, through Meteor's package manager (available to view online at Atmospherejs.com you can get set up with a number of project scaffolding tools.

The first tool is maintained by Evented Mind, the same group that published the Discover Meteor book I referenced above. The tool, iron-cli, scaffolds out your app and provides some boilerplate code to get started. Iron CLI seems more suited for legitimate applications, so if you're looking to build your own site, this might not be the option for you.

Fortunately, Meteor Kitchen has you covered. This scaffolding tool gives you a little more out of the box, including the latest Bootstrap theme and a number of example apps to build off, including code and data for account management and even photo sharing.

In closing, if you're a novice JS developer (or even consider 'jQuery developer' a more apt title), check out Meteor. You'll be surprised with what you can build!