We’re Updating our Book!
We are super excited to announce we are updating our book, The Ultimate Guide to Building APIs and Single-Page Applications to the newest versions of Vue 3, Nuxt 3, Laravel 9 and CapacitorJS 3. These updates will enable you to create reusable code that deploys to web and mobile using the latest technologies.
In the past two years, we’ve learned a lot about development and listened to the users who bought our book. With these updates your code will be more efficient, relevant for a longer period, and able to be used for even longer. It’s been two years since the book has been released, and there have been lots of updates to the underlying technology. We can’t wait to share, let’s get started!
What we are updating
A lot. Since we’ve launched the book there have been drastic changes to the underlying technologies that power ROAST. In order to keep the book relevant for new projects, we’ve decided to update these technologies.
Nuxt 3 and Vue 3
We will be updating ROAST from Nuxt 2 to Nuxt 3! This is by far the biggest update we are making to the book. Recently, the Nuxt team released their project roadmap with an RC candidate in March 2022 and a stable release around June 2022. This is huge news! Nuxt 3 is a giant step forward in tooling, ecosystem and stability. Your apps will be more efficient, your tooling more productive, and your apps up-to-date.
Along with Nuxt 3, this also means that ROAST will be updating to Vue 3 which is fully stable and default as of February 7, 2022! We are excited to share these updates since Vue 3 will be relevant for many years to come. All new projects are recommended to use Vue 3. We want to support those concepts, structures, etc. so you can apply the information in the book to your newest apps.
Laravel 9
Laravel 9 just got released as well. There are a variety of updates that make building APIs a much more seamless and easy process. One of these specifically is the Eloquent API Resources. We will be upgrading our API endpoints to use these API resources along with other areas of the app to use the latest Laravel tooling.
Capacitor 3
Shortly after we launched the initial version of the book, CapacitorJS, the key to making this app work on all platforms, updated to Capacitor 3. In order to stay up-to-date, we will build our mobile modules in Capacitor 3. Capacitor is an extremely powerful tool that allows us to write the same codebase, deploy to web and compile for iOS and Android. We want to make sure this process is well documented and easy to implement into your own apps.
Tailwind 3
Tailwind 3 has also been released. While this is simply the paint that makes the app look gorgeous, we will be updating this as well. Tailwind 3 has a lot of super helpful utility classes that will make ROAST even more fluid. We will touch on some of our custom utility classes that make the same code base work on both web and mobile.
Bug Fixes
Numerous bugs have been recorded and shared with us regarding the functionality of ROAST. While ROAST is a sample app that guides you through the process, we still want to ensure the app is fully functional and useful. We will be adding Apple Login to ensure we follow Apple’s guidelines and acceptance into the app store, fixing token issues, etc.
In addition to the bug fixes we will be adding some documentation on how to run the API & SPA with Laravel Sail. While we use our own internal docker images with spin (which you can use as well since they are open sourced and on Github), we realized there are a lot of users who stay within the Laravel eco-system and use Sail. Our updated book will include documentation on how to run both the Nuxt frontend and Laravel API backend at the same time.
How will we update the code
The largest part of this upgrade will be on the frontend. Going from Nuxt 2/Vue 2 to Nuxt 3/Vue 3 is a complete overhaul. Since this is such a large update and Nuxt 3 is not in a stable release, we will be doing this upgrade over time.
We will first start by branching the frontend for Nuxt 3. If you have purchased the Ultimate Package of our book, you will have source code access and can follow in real time. While we work alongside the releases from the Nuxt team, we will be re-adding features and transferring code. We will NOT be using the Nuxt 2 Bridge. Our book goes through the process from 0 to production and we want that same experience for Nuxt 3. That being said, we will be documenting differences between Nuxt 2 and Nuxt 3 and sharing them along the way.
Once Nuxt 3 is stable and our app is fully updated, we will switch the Nuxt 3 branch to the production branch. ROAST will then be completely overhauled and running the latest and greatest. If your app is using Nuxt 2/Vue 2, don’t worry. Our Nuxt 2 branch will still be available for viewing, just archived. Capacitor upgrade will live in the respective branches as well (Capacitor 2 in Nuxt 2 and Capacitor 3 in Nuxt 3).
With the Laravel 9 upgrade, it’s not significant enough to warrant it’s own branching. We will be updating the book content to account for this upgrade and changing source code wherever it’s necessary.
What you are getting
On to the good stuff! What you will be getting. If you’ve already purchased the book, you will have access to the updates as they become available at NO ADDITIONAL CHARGE! We appreciate you purchasing our book and have thoroughly enjoyed connecting with everyone. If you’ve purchased the Ultimate Package, you can watch our development process within Gitlab. You will also be able to ask questions in the private section of our community forum.
As for the actual book itself, we will be including an entirely new file that includes the updates! You will be able to download this from Gumroad if you’ve already purchased the book. The new file will step through what we’ve discussed in the book with everything updated for Nuxt 3, Capacitor 3 and Laravel 9. That way if you are still using Nuxt 2, you can reference that copy. If you are using Nuxt 3, you can start from scratch and following along with the updated content!
That means, if you buy the book today, you will receive the new copy of the book as it’s written! Once we have fully released the updated book, the pre-sale discount will be ended. So grab your copy today and join us as we explore the new version of Nuxt 3!
