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JavaScript

Edward Pledger
Edward Pledger
2,757 Points
Posted by Edward Pledger
Edward Pledger
2,757 Points

Mobile App Built With Node.js Questions

Hello all,

My ultimate goal is to build a mobile app using Node.js for the back end. I'm going through the "Build a Dynamic Website" Tutorial currently.

If I'm getting ahead of myself by not going through the whole Node.js tutorial forgive me, but I was wondering how different is coding the back end for a dynamic website compared to a "dynamic" mobile app? Do you still use routes? Is there a Treehouse course that I'm not aware of where you do what I eventually want to do?

Thanks in advance!

1 Answer

Andrew Hickman
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.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree
Andrew Hickman
Full Stack JavaScript Techdegree Student 10,013 Points
Andrew Hickman
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree
Andrew Hickman
Full Stack JavaScript Techdegree Student 10,013 Points

Hey Edward! For creating native mobile applications with JavaScript, I'd highly recommend React Native (https://teamtreehouse.com/library/introduction-to-react-native). If you know React, it's an intuitive approach to creating a dynamic front-end for your app. BUT your question was geared more toward the back-end for the app. Express JS (https://teamtreehouse.com/library/express-basics-2) is a great framework for the server-side, and MongoDB (https://teamtreehouse.com/library/mongo-basics) seems to be the popular go-to as a non-relational database. There's a lot of options for both the front-end and back-end, and I'd highly recommend going through the Full-Stack JS track or Techdegree to help you figure out exactly the approach and frameworks you want to specialize in.

Edward Pledger
Edward Pledger
2,757 Points
Edward Pledger
Edward Pledger
2,757 Points

Thanks so much for your advice! I'm glad you mentioned React actually, because I assumed I would be using iOS/Android languages for the front end. Is React a mutually different choice from those languages or is it something I use with those languages? You mention it's great for building a dynamic front-end for the app, which leads me to believe I would use it with say, the iOS programming languagem to make an app for the iPhone?

Andrew Hickman
seal-mask
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree
Andrew Hickman
Full Stack JavaScript Techdegree Student 10,013 Points
Andrew Hickman
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree
Andrew Hickman
Full Stack JavaScript Techdegree Student 10,013 Points

You can build fully functional user interfaces for both iOS and Android with React Native, no Java, Swift, or Objective-C required. Sometimes you might want to build different components or styles depending on the platform, so React Native provides a special "platform" module to help you with just that: https://facebook.github.io/react-native/docs/platform-specific-code.html. It's a great way to create cross-platform apps with pure Javascript (and a little magic from friends at Facebook).