Since we started to see JS on the server side, the dream of developers has been to reduce the gap and the cost of switch between frontend/backend. Today with Node.js, React and a whole ecosystem of tools, this dream is becoming true! In this talk I am going to discuss about Universal (a.k.a. Isomorphic) JS and present some practical example regarding the major patterns related to routing, data retrieval and rendering. I will use Node, React, Webpack, Babel and React Router and give you a series of example to get you started easily with this new technology trend.

1. Rome 24-25 MARCH 2017
{ Universal JS Web Applications with React
Luciano Mammino
loige.link/codemotion-rome-2017
1

2. WHO IS
LUCIANO
lmammino
loige
loige.co
2

3. -20% eBook
NJDPEB20
-15% Print
NJDPPB15
loige.link/node-book
3

4. fullstackbulletin.com 4

5. AGENDA
1. The term "Universal" JS
2. Who & Why
3. Common problems and technologies
4. Building a frontend only Single Page App
5. Making it universal
5

6. ISOMORPHIC
loige.link/universal-js-story
UNIVERSAL WHAT?
6

7. NOT ONLY
FOR THE WEB...
Desktop applications
Mobile applications
Hardware!
7

8. ADVANTAGES
OF UNIVERSAL JAVASCRIPT
"JavaScript-only" development
Maintainability
Better SEO
Faster "perceived" load time
8

9. ADVANTAGES...
MORE
Keep using React/JS paradigms also to
generate "static" websites
Speed up content loading with
linkprefetch
loige.link/universal-react-made-easy-talk
9

10. IN THE WILD
10

11. IT LOOKS GREAT BUT...
11

12. MODULE SHARING
Use Node.js modules in the browser
UMD
12

13. UNIVERSAL RENDERING
Render the views of the application from
the server (first request) and then in the
browser (next requests)
13

14. UNIVERSAL ROUTING
Recognise the view associated to the
current route from both the server and the
browser.
14

15. UNIVERSAL DATA RETRIEVAL
Access data (and APIs) from both the server
and the browser.
AXIOS UNIVERSAL
FETCH
15

16. UNIVERSAL STATE
MANAGEMENT
Manage changes on the state tree both on
the server and the client...
16

17. FUTURISTIC/ALTERNATIVE JS?!
17

18. 18

19. OK...
LET'S STOP COMPLAINING
AND BUILD SOMETHING!
19

20. WHAT ARE WE
GOING TO BUILD?
loige.link/judo-heroes-app​
loige.link/judo-heroes-tutorial
v 2.0
20

21. 21

22. 22

23. 23

24. curl -sS "https://judo-heroes.herokuapp.com/athlete/teddy-riner"
24

25. WHAT TOOLS ARE
WE GOING TO USE?
v2 v15.4
v4
v5-alpha
25

26. Dependencies 😺😺
yarn add
babel-cli@6.18.0
babel-core@6.18.2
babel-preset-es2015@6.18.0
babel-preset-react@6.16.0
ejs@2.5.2
express@5.0.0-alpha.5
react@15.4.2
react-dom@15.4.2
react-router-dom@4.0.0
webpack@2.2.1
26

27. 27

28. The data set
// src/data/athletes.js
const athletes = [
{
id: 'driulis-gonzalez',
name: 'Driulis González',
country: {
id: 'cu',
name: 'Cuba',
icon: 'flag-cu.png',
},
birth: '1973',
image: 'driulis-gonzalez.jpg',
cover: 'driulis-gonzalez-cover.jpg',
link: 'https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driulis_González',
medals: [
{ id: 1, year: '1992', type: 'B', city: 'Barcelona', event: 'Olympic Games', category
{ id: 2, year: '1993', type: 'B', city: 'Hamilton', event: 'World Championships', cat
{ id: 3, year: '1995', type: 'G', city: 'Chiba', event: 'World Championships', catego
{ id: 4, year: '1995', type: 'G', city: 'Mar del Plata', event: 'Pan American Games',
{ id: 5, year: '1996', type: 'G', city: 'Atlanta', event: 'Olympic Games', category:
// ...
],
},
// ...
];
export default athletes;
28

29. REACT
COMPONENTS
29

30. Layout component
30

31. IndexPage component
31

32. AthletePage component
32

33. NotFoundPage component
33

34. AthletePreview component
34

35. AthletesMenu component
35

36. Flag component
36

37. Medal component
37

38. // src/components/Layout.js
import React from 'react';
import { Link } from 'react-router-dom';
export const Layout = props => (
<div className="app-container">
<header>
<Link to="/">
<img className="logo" src="/img/logo-judo-heroes.png" />
</Link>
</header>
<div className="app-content">{props.children}</div>
<footer>
<p>
This is a demo app to showcase
<strong>universal Javascript</strong>
with <strong>React</strong> and
<strong>Express</strong>.
</p>
</footer>
</div>
);
export default Layout;
38

39. // src/components/IndexPage.js
import React from 'react';
import { AthletePreview } from './AthletePreview';
export const IndexPage = ({ athletes }) => (
<div className="home">
<div className="athletes-selector">
{
athletes.map( athleteData =>
<AthletePreview
key={athleteData.id}
{...athleteData} />
)
}
</div>
</div>
);
export default IndexPage;
39

40. // src/components/AthletePreview.js
import React from 'react';
import { Link } from 'react-router';
export const AthletePreview = (props) => (
<Link to={`/athlete/${props.id}`}>
<div className="athlete-preview">
<img src={`img/${props.image}`}/>
<h2 className="name">{props.name}</h2>
<span className="medals-count">
<img src="/img/medal.png"/> {props.medals.length}
</span>
</div>
</Link>
);
export default AthletePreview;
40

41. ROUTING
41

42. 2 ROUTES
Index Page: /
Athlete Page: /athlete/:id
42

43. // src/components/App.js
import React from 'react';
import { Route, Switch } from 'react-router-dom';
import { Layout } from './Layout';
import { IndexPage } from './IndexPage';
import { AthletePage } from './AthletePage';
import { NotFoundPage } from './NotFoundPage';
import athletes from '../data/athletes';
// ...
export const App = () => (
<Layout>
<Switch>
<Route exact path="/" render={renderIndex} />
<Route exact path="/athlete/:id" render={renderAthlete} />
<Route component={NotFoundPage} />
</Switch>
</Layout>
);
export default App;
43

44. // src/components/App.js
// ...
const renderIndex = () => <IndexPage athletes={athletes} />;
const renderAthlete = ({ match, staticContext }) => {
const id = match.params.id;
const athlete = athletes.find(current => current.id === id);
if (!athlete) {
return <NotFoundPage staticContext={staticContext} />;
}
return <AthletePage
athlete={athlete}
athletes={athletes} />;
};
44

45. CLIENT APP
45

46. // src/app-client.js
import React from 'react';
import { render } from 'react-dom';
import { BrowserRouter as Router } from 'react-router-dom'
import { App } from './components/App';
const AppClient = () => (
<Router>
<App />
</Router>
);
window.onload = () => {
render(
<AppClient />,
document.getElementById('main')
);
};
46

47. HTML TEMPLATE
47

48. // src/views/index.ejs
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8" />
<meta name="viewport"
content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
<title>
Judo Heroes - A Universal JavaScript demo application with React
</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="/css/style.css">
</head>
<body>
<div id="main"><%- markup -%></div>
<script src="/js/bundle.js"></script>
</body>
</html>
48

49. BUILD CONFIG
(BABEL + WEBPACK)
49

50. .babelrc
import path from 'path';
const config = {
entry: {
js: './src/app-client.js',
},
output: {
path: path.join(__dirname, 'src', 'static', 'js'),
filename: 'bundle.js',
},
module: {
rules: [
{
test: path.join(__dirname, 'src'),
use: { loader: 'babel-loader' },
},
],
},
};
.webpack.config.babel.js
{
"presets": ["react", "es2015"]
}
50

51. LET'S BUILD IT!
51

52. // src/server.js
import path from 'path';
import { Server } from 'http';
import Express from 'express';
const app = new Express();
const server = new Server(app);
// use ejs templates
app.set('view engine', 'ejs');
app.set('views', path.join(__dirname, 'views'));
// define the folder that will be used for static assets
app.use(Express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'static')));
// render the index for every non-matched route
app.get('*', (req, res) => {
let markup = '';
let status = 200;
return res.status(status).render('index', { markup });
});
// start the server
const port = process.env.PORT || 3000;
const env = process.env.NODE_ENV || 'production';
server.listen(port);
"Static" Express server
52

53. READY... LET'S TEST IT
53

54. RECAP
What we learned so far
1. Define views combining React components
2. Add routing using React Router
3. Compile the client bundle with Babel and
Webpack
4. Run the app with a static Express server
54

55. SERVER SIDE
RENDERING AND
ROUTING
55

56. Updating the server app
// ...
import { renderToString } from 'react-dom/server';
import { StaticRouter as Router } from 'react-router-dom';
import { App } from './components/App';
// ...
app.get('*', (req, res) => {
let markup = '';
let status = 200;
const context = {};
markup = renderToString(
<Router location={req.url} context={context}>
<App />
</Router>,
);
// context.url will contain the URL to
// redirect to if a <Redirect> was used
if (context.url) {
return res.redirect(302, context.url);
}
if (context.is404) {
status = 404;
}
return res.status(status).render('index', { markup });
});
56

57. THAT'S IT!
LET'S TEST AGAIN
57

58. RECAP
What we learned so far
1. Create a Single Page Application with
React and React Router
2. Add server side routing and rendering
using React and React Router libraries in the
Express app
58

59. UNIVERSAL DATA RETRIEVAL
api-proxy & async-props
(COMPLETE CHAPTER in )
UNIVERSAL STATE MANAGEMENT
Redux
Node.js Design Patterns
WHERE DO WE GO
from here...
Code: loige.link/judo-heroes-2 59

60. THANKS!
loige loige.colmammino
(Special thanks to , , Aleksandar Čambas & )@cirpo @andreaman87 @quasi_modal
loige.link/codemotion-rome-2017
60