Matt DeBergalis has announced the Meteor 1.0 release, with new features for mobile app development and packaging improvements.
Announcing the much-anticipated release in the article Meteor 1.0, DeBergalis said he was "delighted."
Meteor is an open source platform for building modern web and mobile apps in pure JavaScript. These apps have live-updating interfaces that let people see information and collaborate with each other in real time, have subtle but essential touches like dialog boxes and popups that feel more like desktop apps than websites, and most importantly, can be run in a browser or installed on any mobile device from the app store.
Though it's just hitting 1.0 today, many companies are already getting fantastic results with Meteor and making money on production applications.
Among some of the highlights in the landmark release is improved Mobile App Support. Where support for building mobile apps in Meteor, including both iOS and Android, was announced in September's 0.9.2 release, 1.0 brings with it significant changes relating to Cordova.
The GitHub changelog includes the accounts-twitter package now working in Cordova apps in local development, Exit from meteor run when new Cordova plugins or platforms are added, and a bug fix for where Cordova clients connected to http://example.com instead of https://example.com when https:// was specified in the --mobile-server option.
Other improvements in Meteor 1.0 include the meteor admin get-machine command for publishing packages with binary dependencies for all architectures, where meteor publish no longer publishes builds automatically if a package has binary NPM dependencies. Other packaging improvements include meteor publish-for-arch that can publish packages built with different Meteor releases.
The developer community in general welcomed the news of the release, with some quick to point out that where Meteor has released version 1.0, Node.js is currently on 0.10.
In the Hacker News post Meteor Hits 1.0 there were many congratulations on offer to the Meteor Development team, and stories of Meteor being used in production. There was also a familiar discussion, asking why Meteor was necessary.
User resca79 said:
When the first release of Meteor came out, I was really impressed by the product. The real time update of the web page with zero code was an amazing feature. Today why do I need Meteor?
Server side, I have multiple choices that guarantee me heigh scalability, performance, and real time. Also the MongoDB solo option, without SQL is very restrictive. Client side, there are great JavaScript frameworks like React, Ember and Angular that are great modular libraries.
Lachgr responded:
SQL support is on the roadmap, along with other great features. It is also possible to use Meteor mostly for the backend and use a framework like React or Angular for the frontend, although I don't know if there are big advantages with such a setup.
I think Meteor is a great concept because of their seven principles, which I haven't seen in any other framework.
In his article Meteor hits 1.0 - Welcome to the new web Stephan Hochhaus, author of Meteor in Action, addresses a version of this same discussion. He says:
Meteor is not yet another JavaScript framework like we have seen so many rise to fame in recent months. Meteor is an entire ecosystem. Other frameworks give you much freedom and flexibility. Meteor gives you a headstart. It's important to understand when to use which... Want Angular in the front? Easy! Use a Java-backend instead of Node.js to power a Blaze frontend? It's been done already!
On November 6, the Meteor community is hosting Worldwide Meteor 1.0 Day, with the launch event hosted in simultaneous meetups hosted all over the world -- from Perth to Honolulu. Anyone interested in attending can find their nearest event here.