CODEWITHSUNDEEP
node.jsgitbackendweb-frontend
Alexander Mills
Alexander Mills

Reputation: 100190

Front-end web projects developed in separate repos from back-end project (API)

Say you are developing a web front-end called F and F is served by a backend server S, which is mostly a RESTful API, but can also serve HTML. For most dynamic language platforms, we would put that front-end code in the public directory, and the server would serve pages from that directory. However, what if you develop the front-end in a separate repo from the back-end code?

In other words, what is the best way to keep the source code for F in a separate git repo from server S? How do developers keep the web front-end for servers in separate projects for the back-end. Or perhaps this is not common for web servers?

My guess is that for outfits that choose to develop the front-end in a separate project, then they do this as a build-step - they copy the source code for the web front-end to a recognized directory for the backend server project S.

Hope this question makes sense.

From what I can tell, Polymer's Vulcanize what I am trying to refer to - it provides a build step which generates an HTML file in the right location - https://github.com/Polymer/vulcanize

Upvotes: 0

Views: 1146

Answers (1)

Jeff Puckett
Jeff Puckett

Reputation: 40971

Your question looks like a very common use case for git submodules or subtrees

Alternatively, if your frontend people never develop S, and your backend people never develop F, then you should be using package dependency managers like npm or composer. F devs include S as a dependency, and S devs include F as a dependency.

Upvotes: 1

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