Discover Meteor: Building Real-Time JavaScript Web Apps

by Tom Coleman, Sacha Greif

Learn Meteor and build faster, simpler web apps as we teach you how to build a real-time Meteor app from scratch.

Genres: Programming, Computer Science, Software, Technology, Nonfiction, Web

190 pages, ebook

Reviews

[Vlad Tanasescu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great, easy to follow and humorous at times. As many project inspired books the last chapters become a bit more arcane and less useful, but nevertheless, a great addition to Meteor's documentation.

[Aelena · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sasha Greif contacted me via twitter offering the chance to review this great book on Meteor.js, that just came out officially last Tuesday. I must say I've greatly enjoyed reading the book and would greatly recommend it to anyone wanting to check out what this meteor thing is.

The book tries to appeal both to the experienced javascript developer and the absolute beginner, which learning curve notwithstanding is never left out, but always guided on how to achieve things little by little. The book is organized in terms of core and sidebar chapters, and also pays a little bit of attention to what other - shorter - texts about meteor left out, which is some explanations of the architecture and the workings of the framework.

The leading plot, so to say, is the step by step building of a site called Microscope (a redux version of Telescope, also built with Meteor.js). You get led step by step, stuff is explained, and every significant step is tied up to a deployed version of the tool and the corresponding github code. Each of the chapter feels like a good tutorial on the chapter's topic. This is good because if you're a bit strapped for time, you can read chapter one by one in easy sittings.

All in all, I think the book opens a whole world where real time application are brought closer to developers with ease and confidence. I think there is a good market for real time enterprise application based on reactive technologies like this (or like SignalR). For me the factor that can somewhat hinder wider adoption is the fast pace of evolution, all the package-like installations, etc. I know plenty of companies use RoR (where to a certain extent the same happens), Node.js (same of the same), and so these would have no issue adopting meteor.js if they haven't already done so, but for the wider landscape, the framework feels a little bit like a whole set of gears that somehow seem to click into place, but that could derail easily.

In that sense I think a general diagram of architecture, sample folder / project structures, a sample workflow for development would have greatly enhanced the book. Especially taking into account that the book already covers detailed stuff about the DDP protocol, latency compensation, publish and suscriptions and the ever important collections. Maybe the sidebar chapter that covers deploying meteor applications to production can feel like high black magic for the novice. Maybe too arcane, could have been left for the appendix (where everybody can safely ignore, that's true).

As per the style, I think the book is very far from boring. It's a pleasant reading. The code follows well, you never get bored and the writing is good. I don't recall typos either. The additional plus is the format itself. The book is not only the book, it's a meteor app, it's complementary videos, updates, not just a pdf set in stone.

THe end result is that you sure get excited with the technology, the immediate changes, the hot code reloads, how info is updated for every client, the simplicity of the pieces, wow. It's really nice. Once you get hold of the tech, it's too easy to develop an app. So, basically, go buy it! you will not regret that cash. It saves you to peruse the fragmentary official documentation and explains important stuff clearly.

[Lloyd · Rating 5 out of 5]

Meteor, the JavaScript web app platform, has been mentioned on the Node.js mailing list -- where I'm a lurker. I'm not a programmer. I can read code in a few programming languages when motivated, but mostly spend my time ensuring software projects are high quality and customers are happy. In my own time, I want to create solutions to my own problems. Meteor looks like a good choice.

Discover Meteor is featured on the Meteor website under "Learn". I downloaded the PDF version of the book.

I was immediately impressed with the "by example" approach, the clear concise prose, and the code at each step. Most important for me is having worked through the book, I'm now much closer to creating solutions to my problems.

Meteor is a living platform. It's under very active development. The Discover Meteor book is right in step with these developments.

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was one of the best programming books I have read. I really love how this author explains each part of code that is written and how it was so easy to understand. This book went over how meteor works very clearly. As you go through this book, you are instructed to follow along and code with the book. You will be writing a full complete real time web application with some really neat animation effects towards the end. This book does not go into any game development but definitely goes into the right direction explaining the meteor framework if you wanted to build a realtime browser game with meteor.

[Vinayak Tyagi · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best

[Peter Backx · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Discover Meteor" is a great hands-on introduction to Meteor. The thing I liked the most about the book is that it offers advice on how to structure Meteor code and what add-ons you probably want to use in every Meteor project.

The opinionated advice is really "Discover Meteor"'s added value. It's a reason to buy this book and not try to learn Meteor from the official (and free) documentation.

The text is written clear and concise. I do think you need a bit more JavaScript experience then what the initial chapter tells you. Especially the sidebars will, most likely, be difficult to follow if you have a minimum of experience.

After reading the book, I have a very good idea of how to write and structure my first Meteor application, which is exactly what I wanted from the book.

PS I bought and read the "the book" version of this book.

[Adam Hansen · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is an incredible introduction to Meteor. The code is easy to read and the instructions are quite easy to follow. It's transparent revelations of the ingenious framework is where the book truly shines. It does however leave you wanting more... A lot more. For its price the book is a tad short, so grabbing this at a reduced price is highly recommended! Compared to just following the various guides on the Internet on how to make your first Hello World app, this book will actually get you up and running with a deep understanding of the Meteor scaffolding, loading sequences, templating and much more.

[Willy · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's tremendous introduction to Meteor. I wish I had read it before my first meteor project...
Meteor might be the next generation web framework. And the author of the book created lots of meteor plugin.
The book leads us to create a simple discuss forum and provide many concept behind the magic behind meteor

Meteor is worth learning and this book is definitely the best book to begin from

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

Comprehensive introduction to Meteor, the 1 framework that could revolutionize web application development with its client-side data caching and reactive framework.

In the same way Rails made all existing web frameworks feel clunky and over complex, Meteor succeeds in making Rails seem over complex for rich web application development.

[Gina Vasiloff · Rating 3 out of 5]

I haven't read this book cover-to-cover though I hear that works too. Instead, I use it to fill in the gaps when I reach something new to me in Meteor.

This book is the best resource I've come across in over a year of developing with Meteor. The authors of the book have also done a great job of building the Meteor community - not a factor in rating the book, but wonderful nonetheless.

[Rocky Assad · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great read. Covers more than the typical "hello world" apps out there. Lots of good points, and every time you're confused about something you're reading, it's explained immediately after. Well thought out. (version 1.3)

[Colby Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book for understanding Meteor. Probably needs to be updated now due to it still using Iron Router (and you should NOT be using Iron Router with Meteor now)

Sasha is a great author and definitely someone you should follow for future releases (and check out his blog)

[n0tall0wed]

The best book for Meteor. Enough said.

[Todor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome book, I till get the full version :) I think this one is going to take some fan devs in the near future

[Max Nova · Rating 4 out of 5]

Clear, informative, and brief introduction to Meteor. Got my head wrapped around all the main concepts and was writing production code in a day. Already feeling the power!

[chandrasekar · Rating 5 out of 5]

This will be very useful for the people who want to create and deploy app in short period of time.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

good book, would appreciate an update using flow router instead of iron router, or if they added it as another chapter.