why is server necessary?

[ariesshrimp]

is there any good way to get this running without express? what work is it doing here?

[plag]

@joefraley You can use any server-side stack, that can print page src/dist/index.html to user browser. index.html - its bootstrap, so put this file on your server and use it.

Note: if your server address if different from http://127.0.0.1:8080 - change this setting in webpack.config.js

[ariesshrimp]

Doesn't dev-server serve HTML though? Why can't I just hit
http://127.0.0.1:8080/
Directly?

This is the thing I'm not getting

[plag]

@joefraley oh, sorry if question on it. This is example for real world, where you separate client-side and server-side. You can empower webpack for initial page rendering, but in real applications you should build "production build" and put it on server as static file than attach on page through <script> tag.