Some thoughts on isomorphic rendering, dev-server and other stuff

[hashnode]

Some thoughts on isomorphic rendering, dev-server and other stuff

[somus]

We are going to work on v2 of MERN starting today. I've put up a discussion thread for the roadmap of v2 at #146. I've put things which were discussed here in that thread. We can continue the discussion there.

[mayankchd]

Thanks a lot @timomeh for your feedback, we will look into it and make relevant changes!

[timomeh]

Sweet! Some of my proposals are big changes which need to be discussed, so I don't want to simply open a pull request. But if I can help, I'd be glad to help!

[sylvainlap]

About the 3rd point, it should be great to use a directory structure, with index.js files in it.

For example, in the redux directory, there should be a actions directory, a constants directory... with at the root of each one an index.js. So that a simple import { action1, action2 } from '../actions', or import * from '../constants' would work.

The same principle could be adapted for components. Each component could be in a directory (named after the component), with inside a index.jsx file.

[timomeh]

Is a dedicated directory for actions and constants really necessary? A actions.js and constants.js in no dedicated directory fulfills the same goal, without having a directory with a single file in it.

[sylvainlap]

Sure thing.

Maybe a directory could allow to have multiple files (for huge apps, where constants or actions should be splitted), and all these files could be exported into the index.js file.

But for a boilerplate, maybe only a file, and not a directory, is enough.

[timomeh]

This could also be a good way to "force users to structure their app". No one likes refactoring. 😉

For example, constants.js is just a list of constants. You won't have a few hundred lines of constants, so a single file is enough.
But all actions in a single file would get very messy as your app grows. Separating actions into multiple files (actions/PostAction.js, ...) and a re-exporting actions/index.js is nice for both small and growing apps.

This could also be helpful for reducers. Maybe together with redux's combineReducers (or its more verbose VanillaJS-equivalent).

[prank7]

@timomeh @sylvainlap We definitely need to put actions in multiple files and use combineReducers, also I think some people like to keep constants for different parts of their app like say admin or users in different constant files thus dedicated directories for them doesn't sound like an awful idea to me. 😉

[isomoar]

What about 1st and 2nd points? I think that after implementation of this improvements + different directory structure MERN source code would be absolutely identical to react-redux-universal-hot-example. The only different is MongoDB present.