Enjoying play.js on the iPad Pro
This morning I pulled up play.js on my iPad Pro to run a simple project I built to hit a MLB stats site and extracts some data, and format it into a simple JSON output. It's nothing, really... a simple Express/NodeJS site that I used in learning Express... but it is just an amazing tool for writing Node services - with front-ends, or not.
It's really pretty nice - includes a full git client, and complete dependency searching and incorporation... it's all you'd really need if you had a Node service back-end, and a static assets front-end. I know it can do even more on the front-end, but I'm quite happy with the ability to use HTML/CSS/JavaScript to build the front-end - I typically don't build elaborate front-ends to validate the back-end service.
The one wrinkle I've seen with some Node dependencies that include non-JavaScript components - like downloaded commands. These are not going to run in play.js's environment. It has to be 100% Node and JavaScript. So... there are some limitations on the projects it can handle... but not many.