Quick background: I'm a java web developer. I deploy my apps in EARs. I'm not familiar with how the build process works for the new JS frameworks like ReactJS. I have been using WebPack as a build tool but only in dev. I'm trying to keep up with the growing tech because my company is slowly adapting to it.
Question 1
How does the build process work when deploying a React app to a prod app server (or any server at that)?
- I'm guessing Node will have to be installed on the app server with WebPack as a globally installed package so when the app is ready to be built, WebPack will kick off its build script in the package.json file that will create your bundle.
Question 2
If the above ^^ is somewhat correct, how do you kick off the WebPack build script?
- My company uses IBM's Rational Team Concert as version control. RTC uses Ant scripts as their build so I'm guessing since we have a Spring Boot API that uses Gradle, we can tell the Ant script in RTC to run the Gradle script so the Spring API will build. Right before the Gradle build ends, Gradle can kick off the WebPack build script that will create the bundle.js. And from there you should have a full functioning frontend service just like you would when developing it.
This whole process has a been a headache to wrap my mind around and would like to get some clarification because there's only so much I can research without pulling all of my hair out. I hope I'm somewhat close to the correct way this process works.