Book Image

Hands-on JavaScript for Python Developers

By : Sonyl Nagale
Book Image

Hands-on JavaScript for Python Developers

By: Sonyl Nagale

Overview of this book

Knowledge of Python is a great foundation for learning other languages. This book will help you advance in your software engineering career by leveraging your Python programming skills to learn JavaScript and apply its unique features not only for frontend web development but also for streamlining work on the backend. Starting with the basics of JavaScript, you’ll cover its syntax, its use in the browser, and its frameworks and libraries. From working with user interactions and ingesting data from APIs through to creating APIs with Node.js, this book will help you get up and running with JavaScript using hands-on exercises, code snippets, and detailed descriptions of JavaScript implementation and benefits. To understand the use of JavaScript in the backend, you’ll explore Node.js and discover how it communicates with databases. As you advance, you’ll get to grips with creating your own RESTful APIs and connecting the frontend and backend for holistic full-stack development knowledge. By the end of this Python JavaScript book, you’ll have the knowledge you need to write full-fledged web applications from start to finish. You’ll have also gained hands-on experience of working through several projects, which will help you advance in your career as a JavaScript developer.
Table of Contents (26 chapters)
1
Section 1 - What is JavaScript? What is it not?
6
Section 2 - Using JavaScript on the Front-End
13
Section 3 - The Back-End: Node.js vs. Python
20
Section 4 - Communicating with Databases

Creating the React frontend

As mentioned previously, there are a few different ways to work with Django and React. We're going to set up our frontend separately and let React do its thing, let Django do its thing, and have them shake hands in the middle. This approach does have its limitations, as we'll see, but it's a basic introduction. We'll get more complicated later on.

Let's set it up, starting with creating a new React application:

  1. Change to the shakespearebot directory (not bot) and execute npx create-react-app react-frontend.

  2. Go ahead and execute cd react-frontend && yarn start and access the development server at http://localhost:3000, just to be sure everything is good. You should receive the React demo page at the preceding URL. Stop the server with Ctrl + C.

  3. Execute yarn build.

Now, here's where things get a little limited. What we've done right now is execute what creates a production-optimized build of the site. This is...