One of the first issues I have had with Meteor is the initial setup. Often times when setting up a new project for the first time, getting the initial setup and installation complete can either make or break your project. Meteor has a fair amount of initial setup procedures. Not only do you have to do everything from the command line, you also have to be good at navigating the directories. If you are unable to install meteor in the precisely correct directory, you can run into a load of issues. When I first was setting up my initial Meteor project, I had to rename one of the folders into “app/”. After renaming the file to “app/”, I needed to continue installing the correct Meteor files into this newly renamed directory. However I experienced a problem. Whenever I attempted to change into this directory I would get the issue “No such file or directory”. I was perplexed because I was typing the command “cd app/”. But it still wouldn’t work. After doing a bit of research I found that I needed to type “cd app:” instead. Then I was able to change into this directory. I found it strange that I had to change to a directory with slightly different name and structure. But nevertheless, I was able to solve my issue.
Another issue I have come across in Meteor is after creating a new page and it not loading at all. I had an issue in the second digits practice WOD, where after doing a large amount of work setting up my add contact page, nothing showed up. I clicked the tab and there was nothing there, and I also tried to directly view it through the given URL, but still it would say page not found. I eventually found my mistake. In my “pages/index.js” file, I realized I had not imported my newly created page. I quickly added the importation commands,”import ‘./add-contact-page.html’;” and “import ‘./add-contact-page.js’;” and lo and behold there my page was. It was a minor lapse in thinking, and what was a measly two lines of code missing from my project, turned into me scratching my head for about an hour.
Meteor so far has been a challenge to learn. I like to look at it as the nervous system of the human body. In the same way as your nerves send signals to different parts of your body, Meteor is in charge of transporting and translating code to different sections. If one of these important relays is missing or not entirely correct, your code can’t function cohesively, or correctly. Taking time to learn this powerful tool is an asset any software engineer can appreciate.