Web technology is so fast moving that often times it all looks like a blur. It seems it was yesterday we were still coding sites on tables, using parameters that today would be considered absolutely unacceptable. The rise of HTML5, CSS3, advanced JavaScript and other languages have essentially transformed the way we see the web today, and it has afforded designers, developers and end-users a wealth of new resources that has made the web a playground of creativity.
Here at Fahrenheit, we strive to be on the bleeding edge of these new technologies and about a year or so ago, we stumbled upon a technology we have come to love: Meteor. Meteor.js is a platform used to build web and mobile applications in pure JavaScript. We love Meteor for a number of reasons and we’ll outline some of them here.
While Meteor.js is not the answer to all things web, it sure is a framework that every web developer worth their salt should get familiar with, whether you’re a newbie or a Jedi. If you are a novice to development, Meteor.js is a great place to start as it will not require you to have extensive background knowledge to get started. Simple tutorials with step by step guidance will help you navigate through the syntax and before you know it, you’ll be on your way to creating functioning applications, simple ones, but that’s the beginning.
For front-end focused developers, Meteor.js offers intuitive template engines that will give you a huge kick start. Blaze (Meteor.js template engine) is very simple and will get you going fast in less time. If you happen to be a rock star in JavaScript already and Node is something you can do in your sleep, Meteor.js is for you too. The framework gives you the flexibility to change anything in it to suit your needs and you can define custom parameters to modify Meteor.js’ real-time behavior. Speaking of real-time behavior, we created a dashboard for one of our clients that was in the business of dispatching truckloads from remote locations. The client sells grass to 5 metro areas, and the grass farms are scattered throughout south Texas. Farm manager are able to login to their dashboard and see in real time the orders that are being placed on the website and without having to refresh their screen, they see the truck load manager filling and optimizing the load and routing of each delivery on the fly. It’s AWESOME to see it in action.
Meteor.js has a great community of developers who are constantly growing and improving on what we believe is already great. We sent our developers to San Francisco last year to a hackathon and they had a blast, meeting like-minded people and working with what we believe will be something great and unique in its space.
Meteor Development – Why Is It Awesome
