Meteor is a new framework recently released that allows you to build close to real time apps. I’ve found it to be very interesting to develop with over my lazy saturday morning, and the best part is it’s built on top of Node.js! It’s a very intriguing way of looking at how to build web apps by making client centric javascript based applications.
In a few easy commands you can have an example app up and running. I won’t go into the details here, but I will gladly point you towards the meteor web site. After going through an creating my first application I was up and running in no time. You’ll quickly find yourself digging through javascript, and html creating an app that is incredibly reactive. Overall, this is a great framework to use, and I think that after some refinement 1.0 will be a smash hit.
Some things it’s great with:
- Real time is made incredibly easy with this framework
- It hooks right into a mongodb based persistence layer no fiddling around with any kind of database driver middleware
- No refreshes needed when developing. Updated code is “Hot Pushed” to the browser. This is to reduce overall deployment time in the long run.
- Client side documentation is great!
Some things it could be better with:
- Server side documentation. I know this is a framework for client side real time applications, but there could be things that people may want to do server side.
- Concerns about security within the framework. I’m not alone with my concerns on security when it comes to meteor. It could use some kind of ACL system to control access to the raw data storage.
- Still a very young framework. This is just a first look at Meteor, many things can change over time besides it’s core principals.
Overall the meteor framework is a refreshing break from the ordinary. I think it was a great first look at the framework overall, and I want to extend congratulations from a modest Detroit based developer for a new set of tools built on one of his favorite languages. If you’re still intrigued with meteor check out their documentation and screencasts. Also check out my github account, and pull a couple of the meteor examples I have! They can be found here and here. Later this week I’ll be making a post on using phone gap for iOS development! Stay tuned.