Chapter 5. Getting Started
Now that we have a solid understanding of isomorphic JavaScript, it’s time to go from theory to practice! In this chapter we lay the foundation that we’ll progressively build upon until we have a fully functioning isomorphic application. This foundation will be comprised of the following main technologies:
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Node.js will be the server runtime for our application. It is a platform built on Chrome’s JavaScript runtime for easily building fast, scalable network applications. Node.js uses an event-driven, nonblocking I/O model that makes it lightweight and efficient, perfect for data-intensive real-time applications that run across distributed devices.
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Hapi.js will be used to power the HTTP application server portion of our application. It is a rich framework for building applications and services. Hapi.js enables developers to focus on writing reusable application logic rather than spending time building infrastructure.
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Gulp.js will be used to compile our JavaScript (ES6 to ES5), create bundles for the browser, and manage our development workflow. It is a streaming build system based on Node streams: file manipulation is all done in memory, and it doesn’t write any files until you tell it to do so.
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Babel.js will allow us to begin leveraging ES6 syntax and features now by compiling our code to an ES5-compatible distributable. It is the compiler for writing next-generation JavaScript.
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