Bringing Node to Mobile Apps

[kwhinnery]

The more I work with node.js, the more I come to love and appreciate the spirit of how node is intended to work. As a pretty average developer myself, I appreciate the simplicity of the "node way":

• Create small components that do one thing well
• Put proven things together in simple ways
• Write software that can interoperate nicely with other systems
• Rely on the strength of community over trying to invent everything yourself (or trusting one vendor to invent everything)

After working with JavaScript in native mobile apps for many years, I found myself wishing that Titanium, Unity, PhoneGap (plus its 9,561 clones) and all the others worked more like node. I wanted a platform that played nicely with the system and frameworks around it. I wanted a small core, but enough flexibility to implement interesting solutions and frameworks. I became frustrated when there was only one way to do something.

After Apple released the new JavaScriptCore framework for iOS 7, I decided I had run out of reasons to put off building the solution I wanted myself. "Putting proven things together in simple ways", I built some technology that allows node.js style programs to run on mobile devices (right now iOS 7, but the way forward seems clear for Android as well). If it's interesting to folks, I'd like to show a bit of how it works, why I built it, and how people can help make it better.

[mikeal]

That sounds pretty awesome, anything up on GitHub yet?

[JamesMGreene]

Saw the fledgling demo at Twin Cities Code Camp last weekend. Very cool! :+1:

[kwhinnery]

Not on GH yet, working on packaging the iOS components as a .framework and cleaning up the command line tools on the node side. Will update this issue with repo links in the next week.

[kwhinnery]

Shoot, forgot to update this - starting to push up to GitHub here