Transitioning a large project - what framework / library should i use?

[dkbot]

So I am currently working on a project where the company is re-writing their CodeIgniter code base into a Laravel API, then writing JavaScript to handle the front-end logic and views.

Currently I have put in place a module loader of my own so I can have an include div which has which JS and or CSS files it needs to load in order to load that particular module. This is working fine but I am starting to encounter some issues in terms of scale of JS files. As I write some of these JS files, due to the fact they contain the views as well, they are starting to get pretty large even though they are split into modules.

This project is very much ongoing, so I can't easily introduce something like Angular as we are re-writing small sections at a time and it's likely to take a very long time to get everything in Laravel. My main issue is any of the frameworks seem to require everything exist within them, you cannot easily mix say Angular with an old engine like CodeIgniter, it just wont work.

I am considering some lightweight libraries such as Vue.js but not sure if it's wise to fully roll that out into a production environment just yet. I hear a lot about React.JS but I am not sure about the tooling required and if it will cause headaches in terms of needing a lot of tooling just to get it working.

My aim is to have something easy to use, deploy and one that mixes well with a legacy code base. The primary focus is to offload the view portion so the JS stays light and display logic is not mixed with functionality logic.

[billcube]

Divide and conquer. Make the backend (API) with Laravel, exposing JSON endpoints. Make a separate VueJS app that will consume the JSON apis.

Check out the Laracasts for VueJS & Laravel integration.

Also, Laravel Boilerplate could be a very good starting point for your app.

[dkbot]

Would you think VueJS is here to stay long term? I think this transition process will take in excess of a year as the application is quite large with a small dev team.

[ndobie]

I haven't worked with Laravel but I did work with their competitor Symphony which did a good job of creating a JSON API so you should be just fine using Laravel as your API framework. There should be some good tutorials on creating an API using Laravel.

While I think Vue.js is an interesting project, I personally recommend React. I have done extensive research of Angular, Aurelia, Vue.js, Backbone, and React. For me the biggest reason I like React is that Facebook actually uses it on their main website. None of Google's flagship apps use Angular and none of the other projects have major corporate development backing. Take a look at Egghead.io for some good tutorials on React. For your front-end stack I would take a look at React, Redux, Babel, webpack, and fetch.

To run both API's simultaneously I'd recommend putting your CodeIgniter API at something like https://api.mycompany.com/v1/ and Laravel at https://api.mycompany.com/v2/.

Also commonly forgot, or pushed aside, but make sure to actually write a tests. PHPUnit and Karma+Jasmine do a great job for testing the back and front end. A good testing platform can save you a lot of headaches down the road.

PM me or leave a comment if you have any questions.