I would like to start learning coding & want to create first app in Meteor. JS framework. I heard lots of good and positive reviews about Meteor.JS framework that’s why I would like to start learn Meteor.JS framework.
So can somebody please provide me best resource to learn Meteor.JS framework?
Some good resources are:
(There are also a couple of nice Meteorists on guzz.io. That’s my own app built with Meteor which connects people supporting each other via live video-chat.)
Hey @waldgeist, Thanks for providing such useful resources. But one more question I know PHP and I would like to know that Metero. JS is like PHP for understanding or something different?
You’re welcome.
Well, PHP is a server-only language. In contrast to this, JavaScript - and especially the Meteor framework - is “universal” (or “isomorphic”), which means that you can use the same language for the front-end and the back-end alike. You can even built mobile apps (like guzz) and desktop apps (via Electron) with it.
Using one language for all these environments does not only allow you to speed up your development process, it also allows for techniques like “optimistic UI” where parts of the server side logic are “simulated” on the client-side.
Let’s say you have a blog app and add another article to the blog. In the classic approach many PHP apps are still using, this would mean that the user sends the article content to the server, the server renders the updated page and sends it back to the client. This kind of roundtrip takes some time. In Meteor, the blog post would be added to an in-memory copy of (parts of) the database (called “MiniMongo”) and the changes to the page applied immediately, right on the client-side, which is blazingly fast. Then, the data is sent to the server in the background (using DDP) and processed there. If the server “agrees” with the simulation on the client side, it just sends an acknowledgement to the client and nothing changes there, as the UI has already been updated. Only if the server does not agree with the already-made UI changes, the client would drop them and use the server-side data instead.
Ohhh!! Got the whole process… By the way looking like hard, but interesting framework…
Thanks a lot!!
It’s not that hard, actually. Just a bit different from PHP. 
Luckily for us, most of the complex stuff is hidden in the background, so for the programmer it’s just a matter of a simple database update call. And all the rest is handled by Meteor. Yes, it’s magic.
Yeah!! That’s why I want to learn… Let’s see what will happen! And if I have questions while learning, I’ll definitely ask you here…
Thanks for your kind support…
Welcome @anitashah to the wonderful world of Meteor! Once upon a time I was also a PHP developer. Its been almost 5 years now since I stopped writing PHP started writing Node and Meteor apps and I’ve never looked back.
To @waldgeist’s resources I’d add the following.
Good luck on your learning journey.
Welcome, @anitashah. I’d also like to add that if you’ve never programmed in JavaScript before, you may find some concepts rather strange, coming from the world of PHP. If you haven’t already, then get yourself a good grounding in JavaScript.
No-one recommending www.meteor-tuts.com ? It’s meant to make the learning curve much simpler. @anitashah you should start with that, and it will no longer seem like a hard framework.
This is actually becoming a quite interesting thread for newbies
Just looking at the “hello” page, you say to check the versions of node and npm, but you don’t actually need to install these. In fact, I think for new Meteor developers, it’s better not to install them at all.
I’d change that test to:
meteor --version
meteor node -v
meteor npm -v
Ah - just seen the “Edit on Github” link - should I do a PR instead?
That would be very helpful. I’m going to revisit that initial tutorial and simplify things and take care of these comments. Thank you!
This JavaScript cheatsheet is very helpful.
Another related:
Hey, cool, I have a private hackschool with a couple of kids I’m teaching app development and I was desperately looking for a JavaScript language overview that wasn’t outmoded and old-fashioned like most of the traditional JavaScript introductions are. Will forward this link to the kids!
Welcome @anitashah. Know that you’re in for quite a daunting task, since it means learning a new language, framework, ecosystem and programming paradigm compared to PHP. Learning all those things at once might feel a bit overwhelming, but I can assure you that Meteor is by far the most approachable way to get into full-stack javascript programming and you’ll find yourself quite a helpful community here. Good luck!
maybe useful
@maxhodges ,Yes I did that course at that time I was skeptical of meteor but the instructor is very good. I was amazed that by just understanding html css and java-script you can create a functional app. I advised doing all the courses in the series.
@anitashah welcome to meteor!
If you want to be at the bleeding edge of technologies, I’d recommend you to take a look at VulcanJS. It uses Meteor as it’s base, and extends it with some really useful tools, and provides graphql as a first class citizen.
For example, right from the start, you have routing, a full accounts system, and even things like pagination ready to use, which sound like something basic (and should be!) but it’s actually difficult to build from scratch and takes a long time, which you can spend building awesome stuff
I also recommend vulcan because I find it much more approachable from a newbie standpoint. It’s youtube channel has some video tutorials about how to build with vulcan & meteor, and a video about “Vulcanstagram”, the vulcanjs clone of instagram.
And remember: Its core is all meteor! It only provides you some defaults and helpers to help you get started with the heavy topics.
Hope you enjoy your time with meteor, and please let us know if you build something cool with it! 