Intro - Making a web application

• If you're someone who's interested in getting started with making a web application but not quite sure where or how to start I'm hoping this project will make a good place to start!

Pre-requisites, what to install and more!

SCM(source code management) AKA versioning

• So you'll need something to version your code. Git is the best! (only option IMO). Go here for instructions on how to install git

Code editor of choice

• The code editor is essentially where all the magic happens, i prefer to use SublimeText

Language of choice

• We're going to be using javascript for the development of both the UI and the back-end services
  • One language to rule them all
  • In my opinion, it's the easiest to pick up and build with
• The MDN(Mozilla Developer Network) is going to be our best friend in this entire process; it's got documentation to answer every question you will ever have about javascript

NodeJS

• This software/tool will help us host our apps. NodeJS is basically a javascript runtime that can run outside a browser! Go here for instructions on how you can install NodeJS on your machine

Official styling partner - Bootstrap

• Again - simple, easy to use for styling otherwise bland html pages! Go here for the style guide

You do not have to do anything for the installation of Bootstrap, i've already included it in this repository

Getting started

• Once you've taken care of the required installations, you're ready to start building an app!

0. We're going to be using a package called redux to manage our application's model. There's a neat plugin for chrome that helps with visualizing the model.

1. Clone this repository

   git clone https://github.com/raghudevan/learn-webapp.git
   

   Fun fact: clone is git terminology for making a local copy of the project for yourself

   This will make a directory learn-webapp in the the directory where you run this command

2. Get into the directory and install the dependencies

   npm install
   

   You can look inside the package.json file to view the list of dependencies that will be installed

3. Once the installation finishes, start the application

   npm start
   

   You'll see a notification on the terminal when the app is ready

Some fun APIs to play with

• reddit thread

Running the app in production

There are two npm scripts to help you get your app running in production

1. First, you build the dist/ assets

   npm run build
   

   This will create bundle.js, index.html inside a folder named dist/ inside your project directory

2. Then you run the production app server

   npm run up-prod
   

   This will run an express app server on port 3001 and host your index.html