node.js style frontend.

[dominictarr]

I want to see (or give) a talk on post node.js, post npm style front end development.
This approach seeks breaks with many typical front end.
no jQuery, no frameworks, instead: simple, narrowly focused abstractions, published to npm, and everything bundled with browserify.

node.js style front-end prefers modularity and reusability to minification.
This requires a different way of thinking and interacting, and a different basis for evaluating your own success.

The general approach is to create widgets, published to npm, and and application should only be a small amount of customization and glue, but with very low complexity.

I'll draw from my own experiments, as well as @Raynos, @substack, and others

[oren]

👍

[Raynos]

I personally havn't found a good way of publishing widgets to npm due to having all our HTML + CSS in a monolithic app and no easy way to break it out.

I did start experimenting towards solving the whole HTML + CSS in npm thing but not to a point where we did it in production. I'd be interested in approaches to this that have worked on multi page production web apps.

I do believe in this approach though.

[mikeal]

there's some work people have been doing to modularize CSS using npm modules @maxogden @techwraith @brianleroux

[techwraith]

Take a look at Atomify - http://github.com/techwraith/atomify.

It ties HTML, JS, and CSS together into reusable components. I'd be happy to help with any prep work for this talk. I've been contemplating doing a talk on this subject myself actually.

[brianleroux]

We will have a @topcoat answer to this very soon too. =)

[Raynos]

Here's my proposal for this talk:

Node style frontend

A talk about the journey of doing modular frontend. No jQuery, no underscore, no Backbone/angular/ember/whatever.

• Talk about my initial take at no-framework & only modules in fyp. Explain what was good and what was bad.
• Talk about hyperscript about how it allows you to bundle templates in javascript, opening doors for modules that contain templates. Mention other approaches like require("template.html").
• Talk about building small UI components with thin interfaces that you glue together in your application. Your entry point is small, containing the minimal glue code and each UI component addresses its own concerns.
• Talk about various approaches to authoring small frontend UI components.

[mikeal]

what is the state of this talk? who is the speaker?!?!

[Raynos]

I don't mind either way.

[Raynos]

I'm talking about the web stuff. @dominictarr should do this.

[dominictarr]

no I've changed my mind. I'll have much more to talk about if I do this #30

[mikeal]

the other talk won't fit in to the programme, i have a spot where this could fit, maybe not though.

[dominictarr]

Okay, so If I was gonna give this talk, it would just as much be about creating minimal versions
of the same stuff that front-end frameworks do (like 2 way bindings) except super minimal, using functions. observable.
Also, I'm a big fan of this vec2.

And since node.js-style pretty much means "modular" it will have lots of ranting on that stuff.
This will all be very far from how people currently do front-end. But that is because this comes from the #stackvm school, and we care much more about modularity than that.
We'd even take modularity over performance, if the performance gains are smallish (say, <= 20%)

[azer]

I've been working on quite similar stuff, a component system called "Brick" based on Browserify, that allows us create and share individual UI units (JS, CSS, images, videos, fonts etc) without worrying about big libraries and frameworks.

and just submitted the proposal to: #82