Please Reload 🤞

A plucky little live server that's trying its best.

This is a CoffeeScript file I wrote in 2023. I expect to continue using it, largely as-is, until 2033.

I use it in my Cakefiles, my personal CLI, and little one-off scripts.

# We're in Node, we're using CoffeeScript, so no, of course we're not using ESM, are you daft?
PleaseReload = require "please-reload"

# The moment of truth: spin up a live-reloading web server using the given path as the site root
PleaseReload.serve "."

# By default, PleaseReload opens your browser to `http://localhost:3000` (or 3001, 3002, whatever's free)
# Don't want it to open your browser for you?
PleaseReload.serve ".", false
# Want it to open your browser to a specific path?
PleaseReload.serve ".", "/specific/path"

# Trigger a reload in the browser. Useful after your build script watcher triggers a recompile.
PleaseReload.reload()

Why?

Why write a new live-reload server? Why not just use Will or Vite or browser-sync or something?

I do use them. But…

• They all eventually silently fail, and I experience bij.
• Why do they have so many features? So much documentation for such a simple task. Which settings should I use for this project? Where do I put my index.html? How do I trigger a reload from a script? Do I have to touch a file?
• Why do they have so many dependencies? Why do I have to install them globally?
• Why do they keep being updated? What if I stick with the old version? I don't want my personal projects to all break after a few years!

That thing I just said — "personal projects" — that's what this is for. My personal projects.

It's really, really, really nice to have my own tools. I know when they'll change, and when they won't. I know what I need them to do, and that's all they need to do. I mean, look at the code. It's a single file, 200 LoC, only depends on Node, CoffeeScript, and a popular, zero-dependency websocket library. A stable runtime, a stable language, and some plumbing (that I can probably eventually replace with like 30 lines of Node). Like I said, I expect to continue using this largely as-is in 2033.

License

It's public domain. Please strip for parts.

Footnote

Above, I wrote: "Why not just use Will or Vite or browser-sync or something?"

"Will" is, at time of writing, made up. It's fake. Bullshit. Why? JS changes fast! Any list of popular tools will quickly go stale. But if I fake up some shit you've never heard of, there's a chance you'll read it and think, "Oh, that must be a new thing, I should check it out." I have tricked you into thinking this project is fresh and vibrant.

Footnote 2

"Will" is, at the time of writing, actually a real thing. I lied! Bullshit, deux. Why? Check the fuck out this repo — a src folder of literate coffeescript!! What does it do? Experimental async / futures / promises, two years before they were added to JS. Check the npm package — 5 weekly downloads! At the time of writing, that's 1 more than Please Reload. So, hey, it's more real than my thing.

I think that's beautiful. I mean, I'm a little envious that they managed to lock down the name "Will" on npm. But, you know, I'd rather it be for something like this… than something like that.