Getting Started with Meteor.js JavaScript Framework

by Isaac Strack

Learn to develop powerful web applications in minutes with MeteorAbout This BookLearn one of the most up-to-date JavaScript platforms, with easy to follow, step-by-step instructionsFamiliarize yourself with Meteor’s new and improved featuresCreate dynamic, multi-user applications in JavaScriptWho This Book Is ForThis book is for developers or students who have a working knowledge of JavaScript and HTML, and want to learn how to quickly develop full-stack web applications using pure JavaScript.

What You Will LearnLeverage reactive programming in modern web applicationsDesign and implement MongoDB/NoSQL databasesDevelop fast and simple web interfaces with HTML templatesUse local and server synchronization to make apps more user-friendlyStructure an application for performance and securityLeverage Meteor's quick and easy user authentication systemImplement third-party packages and add-onsPrepare and deploy Meteor applicationsIn DetailMeteor is one of the most popular development platforms available today, allowing you to create and deploy mobile and web applications in a fraction of the time needed by other JavaScript frameworks. Getting Started with Meteor.js JavaScript Framework Second Edition is an easy to follow, step-by-step approach to learning how to build modern web applications with Meteor.

You will begin with a look "under the hood" to see what makes Meteor so special. Next, you will build a complete, working application from scratch, gaining a thorough understanding of Meteor's major features data on the wire, web templates, declarative programming, full-stack reactivity, modularity, third-party packages, and MongoDB/NoSQL databases. Finally, you will learn how to harden your app, prepare it for production release, and quickly deploy it using Meteor's public servers or your own custom server. With updated screenshots and code, this second edition will show you exactly why Meteor is the choice for rapid, elegant application development.

Genres: Programming

140 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 30, 2015

About the author

Author of the book Getting Started with Meteor.js JavaScript Framework.
Active blogger and speaker, covering the latest in web and mobile application design.
The first-ever recipient of the Jeff Skoll Community award.

Reviews

[Prawee Wongsa · Rating 5 out of 5]

เล่มนึ่เสริมความรู้จากเล่มก่อนมาอีกนิดหนึ่ง ทำให้แม่นในองค์ความรู้มากขึ้น เชียร์!!!!

[Aelena · Rating 5 out of 5]

Meteor.js is a new js framework that's making the rounds these days based on its big claim to simplify and greatly shorten time to market for robust web (enterprise level) applications, with real time interaction capabilities built-in from the get-go, using clear and established development design patterns and idioms. This bundle they call Reactive Programming, and the authors stresses a lot how simple it all is. On a separate note, this R.P. thing is nothing new or exclusive of Meteor.js (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactive...)

So, the promise is very few lines of code, amazing simplicity, haven't we already been promised too many times the El Dorado of frameworks that solve everything easily? Often the enterprise demands higher level of customization. How easy is this? Let's not forget that this much apparent simplicity implies lots of things happening on the background over which, what grade of control do you have? If you check the official page, you'll see that the people behind Meteor have impressive creds and powerful VC backing behind. Let's see of the framework fares as explained here.

Chapter 1, walks you by the hand through the installation process, which is simple enough, but I like it (which others might not like). It's a good thing that the first chapter bothers to go to detailed instructions so no newbie is left behind. Some times the first steps are the ones that can give serious frustration leading to leaving something aside.

Chapter 2 proceeds to explain just enough theory behind this reactive programming concept as applied in the framework, and how it is designed, but it does so by guiding you step by step through the creation of your first web application using meteor.js, and we start by learning about javascript templates. Obviously the slow pace we saw in chapter 1 cannot be held here. So, even if you were guided step by step through the simple install, then it seems you need to know now about templates, or otherwise just "believe" the code.
Then we get to the interesting part by creating "Reactions" (as in Reactive Programming), which mean Meteor is now watching your objects.

Chapter 3 is basically the presales/demo stuff "Why Meteor.js rocks?". It introduces MVVM for those who are unfamiliar (including a history lesson), and a little bit (perhaps too little) on how Meteor works behind the scenes. Then the rest of the Chapters, up to 7, is where the interesting stuff happens. Let's go one by one.

Off we go to Chapter 4, that revolves around templates. Templating is explained now for those who despaired in the previous chapter, as are the all-important events and data models. I think the level is good enough here for an intro text. I really don't think absolute newbies to programming will be picking this book, as a certain knowledge is already assumed (not about meteor, but about programming in general).

Chapter 5 is about data, according to meteor, and the NoSql paradigm. So, if you're not familiar with MongoDB or document databases, here you'll find an introductory guide, but I'd recommend you go get the manuals for a clearer picture (http://docs.mongodb.org/manual/) or try it online in the official page. Other than that, this chapter gives you the bare minimum to get by. The broadcasting part and the configuration of publishers / subscribers, which makes Meteor tick, is given an adequate but shallow treatment, as is the introduction to the technology, so it won't make you an expert at all. In fact, you will need to delve deeper in other sources to solve problems when developing a new app on your own.

Chapter 6 offers a glimpse of meteor's architecture, in terms of folder and application structures. Some caveats and warnings finally appear. Up to now everything had been so rosy. We learn how to disable some packages and enable others to make the application secure, multi-user, etc. Somehow you finish the chapter and you're left feeling there was much more. A few pointers would have been welcome here. You are also explained what is the structure of the applications (quite simple).

Finally Chapter 7 is about deploying the application in order to start cashing in ;-)
As it's usual with frameworks based on node.js and "bleeding edge" technologies, the deployment to a private box can feel a bit daunting and hard to admin. Deploying to meteor hosting is very simple. Deploying to your irons not so much, and the author admits it. I guess the Meteor guys allow deployment to their own servers in order to gain some traction. The sample app was running there ok.

Some reviewers on the internet complain that the book does not go deep enough, but hey, please look at the title and the page count. It's clearly an introductory level book and I think it does that beautifully. That is what it promises, to lead you step by step. All the code from the working example is explained step by step, so while certainly there's a lot to learn if you want to start coding a more complex app for your company tomorrow, at least the samples are reasonably guided so you're not left out to guess, even if this is one of your first exposures to javascript and modern frameworks and templating.
Just to point out some of the things I liked a bit less, I'd say the books feels a little bit too short. Maybe another 30 to 50 pages to delve a bit deeper into some of the workings of the framework would have been welcome. An extra two pages to explain templating with handlebars or some other fwk would have been nice to see.

All in all, a very good and recommendable read. If you're curious about developments in web technologies (and you must be if you are reading this), read this book.

Check out the book at http://www.packtpub.com/getting-start...

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent introduction to Meteor. The book is short yet the content covered here is more than adequate. The author is a good teacher as well, incrementally introducing the reader to new concepts with a playful tone and he seems adept at anticipating the thought patterns and confusion points for beginners.

Sometimes, computer science authors write their books too much like their code itself, defining all their concepts up front (the way they would declare and set values for all the variables at the beginning of a function) and then expanding upon each piece in the section that follows. This pattern is not best for the reader: it's hard to get into a rhythm with the author and results in having to go back to the earlier portions of the book or chapter to re-read the way the author define their concepts as they finally start to sink in. I personally appreciate it when an author tries instead to establish a good flow and introduces ideas dynamically, at the time when each idea can be most appropriately introduced and can be reinforced most effectively by the surrounding content. This author seems to understand this pattern better than most and it makes him a good teacher for it.

What I enjoyed most about this book was the structure of the content, chapter by chapter. The book begins by trying to get you up and running with Meteor and building a simple application as quickly as possible, and its amazing how simple it is to get to that point! It isn't until the third chapter that you go through the necessary high-level discussions of the Meteor framework, the needs it addresses, the history of MVC-like patterns in web development, etc., and in most computer science books I believe you'd be reading through this stuff up-front, anxiously waiting to get started and see it in action. But this book has such a nice flow to it because discussions like these come at the appropriate time and have a reinforcing effect rather than leaving you feeling like "okay, get on with it and let's see some code". The latter half of the book then builds upon the earlier, simple application with more realistic looking UI design, C.R.U.D. operation implementation, authentication, robust configuration of role-based event broadcasting and database access, and finally to deployment. So you can definitely say the content here is covered from basics to basic tour of high-level concepts.

It's hard to be overwhelmed by what seems to be a glut of JavaScript frameworks out there, but after reading this book I think it would be even harder for one not to feel extremely excited by this one. Meteor is a full-stack JS framework and streamlines many high-level patterns and technologies that you'd end up implementing by hand in many other frameworks (or at least be mildly challenged to gather them all together with existing modules). Web socket integration (in a publish/subscribe pattern) between your data-store (by default is setup for you in Meteor as MongoDb) and client-side JS, the ability to operate offline, single-command project creation, single-command deployment, automatic file watching (live reload), easy 3rd party package integration (again, with a single command), and isomorphic JS are all available to you out-of-the-box with Meteor. I suppose Angular is following suite with Firebase, but - as the author mentions in the final chapter - you can even integrate Meteor with Angular or React if you prefer them as front-end clients. It's almost as if Meteor can be the glue that holds together many scattered technologies and techniques you've learned over the years in JS and allow you to focus instead on development.

[Valentin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Meteor is a new JavaScript framework for building web applications therefore the resources that you currently find about it are pretty scattered online. This book is exactly what was needed to fill the gap and to provide a coherent source of information about learning Meteor.js from the basics.
The book is written in a friendly language and it goes through all the processes needed to build a Meteor application from ground up, providing useful code examples that you should follow and test along the way when reading it. You need to be aware that currently only OSX and Linux systems are supported, Windows not yet. Also the book is based on Meteor 0.5.0, however the code should also work with newer versions, although I haven't tested it with the last version which currently is 0.6.0

I found that the book is very easy to follow and although I haven't used Node.js or MongoDB before I had no issues learning to use Meteor from the book and starting to build web apps. You should however know some basic JavaScript before starting learning Meteor. It's also useful that it presents some basics about MongoDB and also about the MVC/MVVM patterns and this knowledge can be used somewhere else also, not only with Meteor. If you're looking to build web applications and fast and use JavaScript I recommend looking into Getting Started with Meteor.js JavaScript Framework and reading this book.

[Ivan Fraixedes · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book provide the first steps to walk into the new Javascript Framework named Meteor, which promises a good future to develop new web applications incrementally from prototype to the production release.

The book wraps quite well all the main concepts to allow to understand what and how Meteor provides a set of tools to ease and boost the development of web applications that beat the functionalities and use cases that nowadays any customer and user expects.

How its title mentions, it is a guide to start, it doesn't unveil the insights of it and all the tools that Meteor offers, but if you are looking for it, then you should read it.

You can find more information about it here

[Alexandros · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very fun and playful way to learn Meteor. The author takes us in a challenge to build a "Lending Library" app. The goal is to make sure that Steve will never claim that he has forgotten a borrowed item again! It's beginner friendly but not for complete beginners. The author explains most of the code but not in a very detailed way. I managed to complete the book with ease and it was a pleasurable procedure. However, closing the book and trying to recreate the app by myself, will end up in a very frustrating situation.
If you have zero coding experience, perhaps you should start with the basics of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript before buying this book

[David Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

So far, I think this is an inferior book to Discover Meteor for learning Meteor. Couple reasons. 1. Code walkthrough is somewhat sporadic and missing some key technical details. 2. The flow of Meteor framework is not as thorough and as good as other materials - it's almost like a blog entry. 3. Would be nice to have better cross-reference to sample code online. 4. Doesn't tie into larger web development beyond somewhat cursory overview of popular terms. 5. Found the code examples bit hard to follow.

[Julio Biason · Rating 4 out of 5]

I must say, I'm confused about something: Either the book is really shallow or there are no "gotchas" with Meteor. 'Cause the book goes all the way from creating a single application from start to end, keep it straight, doesn't add any bullshit, add external dependencies, packages it and then deploys either on the meteor structure or in custom server.

So, again, either Meteor is so simple that everything is already packaged or the book is shallow and doesn't go deep into problems you may find. I can't really know, after reading it, which one (although I'd bet my money on the first).

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent enough book. It covers the essentials, but I would have liked to know how to structure large meteor applications.

[Mark Shropshire · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit outdated, but not the books fault. Meteor.js is in active/rapid development.

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good first book for someone to learn the Meteor framework covering design philosophy and building your first app.

[Alvaro Tejada Galindo · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was my first encounter with MeteorJS...the book is awesome! Awesome, funny and a great way to learn! Totally recommended...

[Max · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit out of date but it is still worth reading.