Node Web Development : A Practical Introduction to Node, the Exciting New Server-side JavaScript Web Development Stack

In Detail Node is an exciting new technology stack that brings JavaScript to the server-side of web applications for the first time. Node means that JavaScript is no longer just for browsers. It's for web application development, it's for developing any internet protocol, it's for the real-time web, it's for command line scripts, and much more. Node Web Development gives you an excellent starting point straight into the heart of developing server side web applications with node. You will learn, through practical examples, how to use the HTTP Server and Client objects, the Connect and Express application frameworks, the algorithms for asynchronous execution, and use both SQL and MongoDB databases. This book is the ideal companion for getting started with Node. Starting with practical advice on installing Node for both development and application deployment, you will learn how to develop both HTTP Server and Client applications. Many different ways of working with Node are shown, including using database storage engines in applications and developing websites both with and without the Connect/Express web application framework. You will also get an introduction to Node's CommonJS module system allowing you to implement an important subset of object-oriented design. Approach This book is a practical introduction to learning about Node. Each chapter introduces you to a different area of Node, using screenshots and examples to get you up and running as quickly as possible. Who this book is for If you are a developer who wants to use JavaScript on the server side in order to build quicker, higher performing web applications, then this book is for you. It is recommended that you should have at least a rudimentary understanding of JavaScript and web application development. Node is a newly-developed software platform that liberates JavaScript from the web browser, enabling it to be used as a general software development platform in server-side applications. It runs atop the ultra-fast JavaScript engine from the Chrome browser, V8, and adds in a fast and robust library of asynchronous network I/O modules. The primary focus of Node is on building high performance, highly scalable server and client applications for the "Real Time Web". The platform was developed by Ryan Dahl in 2009 after a couple of years of experimenting with developing web server components in Ruby and other languages. The exploration led him to the architectural choice of using asynchronous event-driven systems rather than the traditional thread-based concurrency model. This model was chosen because it's simpler (threaded systems are notoriously difficult to develop), has lower overhead over maintaining a thread-per-connection, and for speed. The goal of Node is to provide an "easy way to build scalable network servers". The design is similar to and influenced by other systems such as Event Machine (Ruby) and Twisted framework (Python). This book, Node Web Development, focuses on building web applications using Node. We will be taking a tour through the important concepts required to speed up with Node. To do so we'll be writing real applications, dissecting them to scrutinize how they work, and discussing how to apply the ideas to your own programs. We'll install Node and npm, and learn how to install or develop npm packages and Node modules. We'll develop several applications, ponder the effects of long-running calculations on event loop responsiveness, look at a couple of ways to distribute heavy workloads to other servers, work with the Express framework, and more This is a practical hands-on book with clear instructions and lot of code examples. It takes a simple approach, guiding you through different architectural topics using realistic sample projects. A single project is implemented using different architectural styles to make the reader understand the details of each style. There are also many small independent code samples to explain design patterns, WCF, and localization. This book is for people familiar with the ASP.NET framework using either C# or VB.NET. You don't need to be an ASP.NET guru – the book is ideal for novice and intermediate developers. If reading about application architecture usually confuses you or sends you to sleep, then this book will be perfect for you! In short, any ASP.NET programmer who is confused or disoriented reading different books or materials on architectures wondering how and what to implement in their application, will definitely benefit from this book! A practical introduction to Node, the exciting new server-side JavaScript web development stack