React/Meteor/Node.js Development on Windows

For the first two years of my tenure with React, Node.js, Meteor and MongoDB, I worked exclusively within Ubuntu VMWare virtual machines running inside a Windows host; later, I moved all of my development to Windows native.

You might ask: why would one do this? One reason is that it smoothed out some kinks in my development process. Much of this has to do with Sublime Text (my editor of choice). Note that I used to run Eclipse on Ubuntu on VMWare, and I’d do all of my editing from within the Ubuntu operating system.

This approach had a couple of drawbacks: poor performance, but also VMWare limits you to only a single display.* This is a significant drawback, because there are huge efficiency advantages when using multiple displays.

I am now building natively on Windows. I have created a bunch of batch scripts that support the build/release process, including scripts to automatically push builds to my test Ubuntu machines or AWS.

Right now, I'm super happy with my setup. I've worked hard to get my Windows Sublime Text set up with the best packages for React development, including the stupendous SublimeLinter ESLint and Oceanic Next Color Scheme:

For React development, Sublime Text syntax highlighting and error detection is second-to-none, and although I still love Eclipse, there is no going back.

*I realize that VMWare supports Unity mode, but I have personally found this approach to be quirky in practice.