Do you really know Monorepo? 5 minutes to learn about front-end mega-architecture.

In the world of software development, large-scale architectures are a common challenge, but the definition of the term is often ambiguous. What is large? Does it mean a front-end development project with more than 100 people involved? Is it a large project with over a thousand pages? Or is it a front-end project with a multinational department? The truth is, everyone has a different idea of what a large project is, but there's no denying that when the amount of code grows, large projects of any type become difficult to manage.

In this article, we will look at the challenges of large-scale projects from a number of perspectives and present one solution to these challenges, the "Monorepo" front-end mega-architecture.

Challenges of Large Scale Projects

1. Diversity of front-end technologies

Diversity of front-end technologies is a common challenge in large projects. Different teams may use different front-end frameworks and tools, such as Vue.js, React.js, Jest, Cypress, and so on. This diversity makes project maintenance more time-consuming because of the need to constantly learn and adapt to various technologies.

2. Complexity of front-end architecture

Large projects often contain hundreds or even thousands of front-end components scattered in different files with complex coupling and dependencies between them. This makes code difficult to understand and modify, and increases the risk of errors.

3. Challenges of Teamwork

In large projects, there are usually multiple teams involved, each of which may have its own code style and technical preferences. Such differences can lead to communication problems and make it difficult for different teams to collaborate.

Monorepo front-end large-scale architecture

To address these challenges, Monorepo, a front-end mega-architecture, was created, a centralized framework for managing large amounts of code, as opposed to a traditional discrete project. The core idea is to manage all front-end related code in a single repository. The advantages of this architecture are increased code reusability, increased code transparency, ensuring that all packages use the same version, and standardized code styles. In addition, Monorepo facilitates more frequent communication between different teams.

Benefits of Monorepo

1. High program reusability avoids unnecessary duplication of work.
2. The code is more transparent and easier to refactor and maintain.
3. All packages use the same version, including test and configuration files.
4. Consistent style of all code reduces confusion.
5. More frequent communication between different teams facilitates better collaboration.

Disadvantages of Monorepo

1. It is not possible to uniquely set permissions for some code, which may cause security issues.
2. When working on large projects, Git's effectiveness can be affected because the repository becomes even larger.
3. It may take a long time to build the application, especially if the contemporary code base contains a lot of code.

Monorepo's culture

The concept of Monorepo is not new, it has a long history in software development. Thirty years ago, FreeBSD used a similar concept and used CVS as a version control tool. In addition, many well-known open source projects have successfully applied Monorepo concepts, such as Laravel, Babel, React, Angular, Vue, etc. These projects have benefited from Monorepo. These projects have benefited from Monorepo, enabling different front-end frameworks to exist in the same large project and enabling code sharing and reuse.

Is Monorepo worth investing in?

In summary, Monorepo is an effective way to solve code management and collaboration challenges in large projects. Monorepo is a smart choice when the same components need to be shared across multiple different systems and products. Although setting up and running Monorepo may require some initial investment, it will facilitate future collaboration and increase code reusability.

Of course, Monorepo is not a solution for all situations. In some cases, such as when permissions need to be set for specific code, when the codebase is too large, or when build time is critical, other options may need to be considered. Ultimately, the choice to use Monorepo should be based on your project needs and the reality of your team's situation.

Conclusion

Monorepo is just a tool, but it can effectively meet the challenges of large-scale projects. There are many ways to solve different problems, and Monorepo, as a modern code management and collaboration framework, will continue to evolve and help us tackle more complex problems. Whether you choose to use Monorepo or not, it is important to keep learning and exploring new tools and methods to cope with the ever-changing software development environment.

We hope this article has helped you better understand the concepts of Monorepo and helped you better organize and manage your code on large projects. If you are considering adopting Monorepo, make sure you thoroughly research and evaluate its applicability and make informed decisions based on real-world requirements.

If you are interested in other contents, you are also welcome to refer to the following articles:

Why do big companies use Nx ? Monorepo Tool 5 Minute Quick Build

What is Zustand? React Front End State Management

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https://github.com/korfuri/awesome-monorepo

https://monorepo.tools/

• Laravel
• Babel
• React
• Angular
• Vue