I don’t object to using other front end libraries, especially now when Blaze has been abandoned for many years. The reason I miss Blaze so much is that it’s so intuitive and simple to understand/copy.
Meteor js 1.0 was amazing because of its real time and simplicity, which attracted newbies like me. Attracting newbies or non-professionals is important because it’ll make itself popular.
Think about Python! Python is not great in many areas if you really want to compare(the only greatness is probably its simplicity), but it attracted many non-programmers to it and became a mainstream language eventually.
As a newbie, I want to spend least amount of time to develop an app. no more new front end tech, since I have no time for that. In the old days, just plain meteor/blaze+html+css+js. Now I’m confused.
If you are a professional, welcome to spending time re-invent the wheels. But, according to past experience, most of those efforts are not going to get you too far.
For Meteor js itself, I think the most important thing is its ability to do things. The development focus should be task-oriented. Can it connect to SQL? I mean, easily(one line of code, like {{> loginButtons}}) or built in. Experts might say they have many ways and many line of codes to do it, but those are intimidating for newbies.
If the core team can solve one problem a year, it’ll definitely rise from ashes. If one line of code can do the job, it means you solved the problem. Otherwise, it’s one time patch.
Also, be realistic. Tell people frankly: it can’t manage many users, etc.
For the tutorial, it doesn’t tell much about the internal process of Meteor code. I’d recommend adding one chapter of internal mechanisms right before ‘next step’.