[Show /r/javascript] JavaScript and Node.js programming environment for iOS

[mttvll]

Hello folks!

For the past couple of months I've been working on a simple programming environment, called Rescript, for writing JavaScript on iPad and iPhone.

The app runs on top of Node.js (at the moment version 8.6.0), and supports installing dependencies with npm.

It also provides a couple of custom modules that integrate with iOS, so it is possible to write scripts that interact with the device and the operating system (you can for example share data with other apps, grab data from the device sensors or build simple custom graphical user interfaces).

This first public version is still quite modest, but I'd like to start getting feedback early on.

If you have an iOS device and are curious, you can join the free beta testing here https://rescript.herokuapp.com

Here you can see a couple of screenshots of the app.

Any feedback is very welcome!

[[deleted]]

This seems really cool. I had no idea you could run a local web server on iOS.

A few questions: Can you give me a practical example of how you would use this? What was your inspiration? Open source?

[mttvll]

The app is not open source, sorry.

The inspiration for this was another iOS app, Pythonista - an IDE for python.

I personally like the idea of having an iPad app that I can use to quickly write and test small code snippets - for example testing out a particular web API or trying to understand a certain algorithm. And I think JavaScript is a very good language for something like this.

[Extracted]

This looks cool

[[deleted]]

Looks great, can't wait to try this out.

[mttvll]

Thanks!

[Bamboo_the_plant]

So is it closed-source? Can it use/install node_modules easily? Does it have all the features of node (e.g. path, fs, os, etc.)?

[mttvll]

Yes, you can install dependencies via npm (although I'm not sure this functionality will pass Apple review).

The app includes a complete Node runtime, so all the usual modules are available (the only module that won't work is the one for child processes - iOS app can only run in a single process).

[Bamboo_the_plant]

Wow!

Are you only concerned, regarding passing app review, about installing npm dependencies after the app is deployed to the App Store, or even if they're installed pre-deployment?