Has Node JS anything to offer for the UI?

Question

Hope I'm not being to general but: I have been tasked with the job of "rejuvenating/modernizing" a monolithic Java EE (JSF/CDI/EJB/JPA) app. Since the requirements state that it should support multiple clients, I have split up the code in a server (JAX-RS interfaces) and a client part (not yet done)

The server is pretty straightforward but I'm wondering about the UI part. Nowadays (hope I don't sound too oldskool) various Node JS spin-offs seem to be popular but I'm under the impression that they have the most value to offer in the "scalable server" section. Does the various Angular/React/Node framework have anything to offer for the client if you have something more complex than a single page app?

It appears to be a really hard time to pick a UI technology nowadays. Sure, the server/DB part which contains most of the business logic are pretty future-proof but still, one would like to focus on one UI technology. There are various jQuery-based frameworks like Kendo, Vaadin & co etc. One option would be to stick with JSF + ICEfaces/PrimeFaces and just work with the REST interface. And then there is JavaFX which looks nice but the future looks a bit uncertain.

So. If the backend is not going to be Node JS, does Node JS have anything to offer for the UI part that can't be done more easily with other frameworks and does anyone have other insights on the UI layer in general. Predicting is hard, especially the future ;-)

Answer 1

Electron, which combines NodeJS and Chromium (render Process).

https://electronjs.org/

Formerly known as atom shell it was created by Github, it is the core of the Atom Editor, VS Code, Slack app, and a ton of “thick client” applications. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_client