Derby is one of a new breed of JavaScript frameworks that take advantage of the interesting NodeJS to create a web app framework that runs your code both on the client and the server. This has a tonne of huge advantages compared to writing a complex JavaScript application that has to communicate with a different language on the server and still maintain visibility to Google. The big advantages I see from this:
- Only one language to work in makes it easier for developers
- Communcation between client and server is automatic and seemless
- Pre-rendered on the server, updated on the client so Google gets the proper content but you still get dynamic updating for your users
So with this in mind I decided to do a little test app and of course the first step was getting it installed. These are the steps I had to go through to get it working.
sudo apt-get install python-software-properties
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:chris-lea/node.js
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nodejs npm
sudo npm install -g derbySo far so good, you create and start-up your app like this…
derby new first-project
cd first-project
npm startHapp coding and lets hope these frameworks make creating fantastic, dynamic apps a breeze in the future!
Oh, for an alternative try.. [meteor][2].