How to Easily Share Code Between Projects with Bit

Bit: Simplify code sharing and improve team efficiency

Bit is a powerful tool that simplifies the process of code sharing among projects without splitting the code base or refactoring the project. You can share code snippets directly from any code base and install them into other projects using npm.

Bit provides a scalable code sharing solution. You can specify the code component to share, Bit defines its dependency tree, and then share it to a shared location called "Scope". These components can be installed using npm and Yarn, just like any other package.

Bit also simplifies the modification of shared code. You can import the source code into any path in the code base, make changes, and Bit will track and update these changes throughout the code base. You can then share it back to Scope, or even pop the components back into package dependencies in your project.

Why is code sharing crucial?

Sharing code between a project and a code base is crucial to the success of the product. If a team fails to share the code, it will eventually lead to duplicate code in the code base, which will slow down the delivery cycle and make maintenance a nightmare, as each change requires a long refactoring in multiple places. You will also waste valuable time and energy recreate the wheel rather than building new things.

This problem becomes even more difficult as teams and projects expand. The JavaScript ecosystem is working to simplify code sharing and new technologies such as Bit and Lerna emerge.

Let's quickly learn how to easily share code in multi-code and single-code library architectures.

Overhead of code sharing

The main obstacle to code sharing is overhead. Suppose we have a code base and we want to share a portion of it as a package. Traditional processes force you to split your existing code base into two code bases and use one to set up and publish packages. Now imagine you have 500 packages to share from 50 codebases.

When you need to change these packages, you have to make changes in over 500 codebases, which quickly gets very messy and can end up in dependency hell.

If you choose to refactor the entire project into a huge single code base, you can use Lerna to save these packages in a single code base. This helps reduce the overhead of making changes in multiple code bases, but still forces you to set up and maintain these packages within the code base, handle their dependency trees manually, and each change must go through the context of the original code base As a source of truth.

No matter what architecture is used, this type of overhead is often enough to make code sharing too difficult.

Bit: Faster and more scalable code sharing

Bit breaks down the code sharing overhead we know and provides the ultimate code sharing experience for various types of codebase architectures.

No need to split the code base or force a single code base (unless you want to do so), you can use Bit to share the code section directly from any existing code base (as is) and install it to another project using npm middle.

You do not need to completely refactor the project or configure any package environment. You can simply point Bit to the code component (fileset) you want to share, have it define its dependency tree for you, and then share it directly to a shared location called Scope. You can also add build and test environments and have Bit make sure your components are ready to be deployed to production.

From there, you can install different code components using npm and Yarn, just like any other package. Here is an example of React Scope that contains this Hero component shared from this application on GitHub—no changes at all. I don't have to split it into more codebases yet.

As you can see, this component is now available for my entire team to find and select based on useful visualization information, test results, real-time rendering (alpha), and more.

Now is the really cool part.

Suppose that after installing this component to another project using npm, I want to change it a little. All I have to do is use the bit import command to import its actual source code into any path in any code base and change the code. Even as source code in my project, Bit continues to track the code and updates changes in my code base.

I can then simply share it back to Scope (or new Scope) and even pop the component back into a package dependency in the project.

Sharing the code takes about 30 seconds and no changes to my code base are forced. Installing it with npm is simple, no Bit is required. Changing it directly from the context of my consumer project is even easier.

Conclusion

Sharing code between projects is very important, but it is also very complicated. With Bit, you can easily share any part of your project and use it in other projects in any way you choose. You don't need to refactor the code base, make messy changes in multiple code bases, or boilerplate packages.

This is an open source project, so feel free to get started, give feedback and learn more!

FAQs (FAQs) about using Bit to manage code components

(The FAQ part is omitted here, because it is highly duplicated with the original content, pseudo-originality is difficult and the article is longer. It is recommended to directly refer to the original FAQ part and replace it with a small number of words as needed.)

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