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Ask HN: Is Meteor.js mature to enough to use it for building big applications?

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Re: Ask HN: Is Meteor.js mature to enough to use it for building big applications?

#11

Post by tomelders »

I don't know about meteor in particular - but my advice would be to eschew frameworks in favour of libraries, I'm not the first person to suggest this and it's worth using some google-fu to read the differing opinions.

Essentially, Common JS + NPM lets people/teams create their own "frameworks" with very little effort whilst also freeing them from the bulk and cruft of a framework that has a limited future; if it has any future at all. The tools and technologies we use to create websites/apps are changing at break neck speeds. Frameworks are in it for the long haul and they hope the decisions they make today will be relevant in two+ years time - but devs have to cope with demands in real time. We don't have the luxury of hope.

Here's some good reading http://tom.lokhorst.eu/2010/09/why-libraries-are-better-than...

Re: Ask HN: Is Meteor.js mature to enough to use it for building big applications?

#12

Post by philippnagel »

daxfohl wrote: post #9

No. Even pagination still requires 3rd-party plugins. Last time I tried (granted about a year ago) none of the existing plugins were very good (the only reactive one added the new page's items to the table before removing the existing page's items maybe .5 sec later--horrible user experience). Perhaps the plugins are better now, but still it seems like something so fundamental it should be in the core distro; the met…

I am actually quite a friend of the modular structure (Unix fan here).

The package manager is good and the packages itself are getting better and more usable all the time.

But one could definitely argue that things like routing should be part of the core. On the other hand Meteor could be getting pretty monolithic over time.

Re: Ask HN: Is Meteor.js mature to enough to use it for building big applications?

#13

Post by aikah »

> that should be able to scale and with high performance on both client and server side

No plateform "scales" magically. You are asking for something that doesn't exist. Or you don't know what the hell you are talking about and just throwing random words to make your question look sophisticated.

Sorry but I'm a bit sick these kind of questions.

Re: Ask HN: Is Meteor.js mature to enough to use it for building big applications?

#14

Post by subpixel »

alexandernst wrote: post #10
charif wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You missed that the MeteorJS ecosystem has a lot of packages that take care of i18n, routing support (iron router), SEO (spiderable), basic forms support (autoform). I agree that there is room for improvement, but I am confident that the team behind MeteorJS will make MeteorJS a success.

No, I didn't. I'm aware of the existance of those. But those , as you say, external packages are lacking any type of official support. And that is just no acceptable for any serious/big project. A project manager will be rofl-ing hearing those words, I'd say.

There has been some unofficial recent discussion on certain Slack channels about MDG introducing their own versions of key packages. I hope that happens - I think it would go a long way towards addressing concerns like yours, which I share.

Re: Ask HN: Is Meteor.js mature to enough to use it for building big applications?

#15

Post by sgdesign »

alexandernst wrote: post #7

No, meteor is still missing quite some, basic I'd say, things. Have a look at https://trello.com/b/hjBDflxp/meteor-roadmap , but I can make a quick resume for you: * There is no easy/official way for doing joins in subscriptions (you can't join "Posts" and "Comments" in a typical blog example). I'm aware of several plugins that try to implement that, but they all lack official support and quite of them just fail at d…

I think you're under the wrong impression. Meteor is somewhere between a platform like Node (which it runs on top off) and a full-fledged framework like Rails or Django.

So I feel your criticisms are a bit unfair. Meteor doesn't provide a solution for forms and internationalisation out of the box because it's not supposed to. That's where packages come in.

Now whether or not it should become a framework is another matter.

Re: Ask HN: Is Meteor.js mature to enough to use it for building big applications?

#16

Post by sgdesign »

tomelders wrote: post #11

I don't know about meteor in particular - but my advice would be to eschew frameworks in favour of libraries, I'm not the first person to suggest this and it's worth using some google-fu to read the differing opinions. Essentially, Common JS + NPM lets people/teams create their own "frameworks" with very little effort whilst also freeing them from the bulk and cruft of a framework that has a limited future; if it has…

While I agree in principle, I think it's fair to point out that glueing various libraries together takes a lot more work than using an all-in-one solution like Meteor.

If you can do it, more power to you, but I'm pretty sure there's a large population of developers who just want something that works out of the box (I know I'm one of them).

Re: Ask HN: Is Meteor.js mature to enough to use it for building big applications?

#17

Post by kowdermeister »

alexandernst wrote: post #10
charif wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You missed that the MeteorJS ecosystem has a lot of packages that take care of i18n, routing support (iron router), SEO (spiderable), basic forms support (autoform). I agree that there is room for improvement, but I am confident that the team behind MeteorJS will make MeteorJS a success.

No, I didn't. I'm aware of the existance of those. But those , as you say, external packages are lacking any type of official support. And that is just no acceptable for any serious/big project. A project manager will be rofl-ing hearing those words, I'd say.

I know these project managers. They ask for a 15 line JS helper "library" enterprise level support and they start to scratch their head "what if the developer abandons it".

Re: Ask HN: Is Meteor.js mature to enough to use it for building big applications?

#18

Post by joshowens »

Yes, I know of tons of applications that have a large code base and use Meteor.

Go look at places like ClassCraft, WorkPop, MixMax, FantasyHub, etc.

Plenty of teams are scaling both the code base and the app servers to handle thousands of concurrent connections.

What is stopping you from trying Meteor, really? Your questions are more focused on the culture of building an app, not about the framework itself.

Re: Ask HN: Is Meteor.js mature to enough to use it for building big applications?

#19

Post by joshowens »

alexandernst wrote: post #7

No, meteor is still missing quite some, basic I'd say, things. Have a look at https://trello.com/b/hjBDflxp/meteor-roadmap , but I can make a quick resume for you: * There is no easy/official way for doing joins in subscriptions (you can't join "Posts" and "Comments" in a typical blog example). I'm aware of several plugins that try to implement that, but they all lack official support and quite of them just fail at d…

Spoken like a true person who spent an hour investigating the platform and then moved on. All of the issues you've pointed out are solved using third-party packaging.
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