Isomorphic Code

Isomorphic code is code that can run on both client and server side.

The rise of full stack JavaScript made isomorphic code possible. By default, all Javascript code that only uses the standard library is isomorphic. This means popular utility libraries like Lodash, Moment, RxJS etc are also isomorphic, because they only use the standard Javascript features.

However, to build a usable application, we have to inevitable use some platform-specific features, like the DOM api to manipulate elements on a webpage, or the HTTP api to create a server files and data over the web. Working with data is also usually different on the client and server. On the client, you would fetch data from an HTTP api and store it in memory, and on the server you would fetch data from a database and send it as a response to the client.

This means that React can be used in Nodejs to describe HTTP endpoints, generate PDF and DOCX files, and much more! However, the most common use of React on the server is server-rendered apps.

These frameworks abstract the concepts of client and server when writing React components. So we can write components that use data from the server without having to fetch it through an HTTP api, and show that data using HTML elements. Weird, right? After a few years of writing client-rendered apps, Nextjs felt a little like magic to me, very similar to Meteor’s sorcery.

Tough luck.

Just kidding.

Tough luck.

Well, only kinda kidding this time.

While these approaches exist, the most preferred way to build client applications is still through Javascript. And as long as that is true, we will keep finding ways to make the same code run everywhere. While the term “Isomorphic Javascript” has lost a little bit of it’s buzzword status, it is a powerful technique that is still implemented in the most popular frameworks and applications.

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