A retouch of JavaScript and Node

It has been more than two years since I last touched JavaScript and Node. My current projects are mostly centered around Java. But it was always fun to come back and refresh my memory and knowledge about it.

It almost feels like traveling through time machine, too many things have changed over the past two years. Node was forked into io.js and ES6 has been out and getting traction. And there are new frameworks out each week. Frontend engineers must have been having a tough life to keep up, and tons of fun as well.

Here I just keep some book notes for my reading through the book "Node.js in Action". The book itself turned out to be a bit outdated, but many basics are still valid. There is also another more recent Manning book "Node.js in Practice".

Difference between exports and module.exports
exports is a reference to module.exports, so as long as you do not reassign it to something different, they are the same.

Module search sequence
search for node_modules recursively from current directory, if not found, then search for environment variable NODE_MODULE or NODE_PATH.

Module require search sequence
Search for index.js, then inside package.json to find the "main" definition.

Flow control libraries

async: https://github.com/caolan/async

nimble: https://github.com/caolan/nimble

step: https://github.com/creationix/step

seq: https://github.com/substack/node-seq

See article for a discussion about how to handle async programming with JavaScript: How to survive asynchronous programming in JavaScript

unit test frameworks

nodeunit: https://github.com/caolan/nodeunit

mocha: http://mochajs.org

vows: http://vowsjs.org

should.js: assertion lib: https://github.com/tj/should.js/

functional test frameworks

tobi: https://github.com/LearnBoost/tobi

soda: https://github.com/LearnBoost/soda

Keep app running/restart

monit: https://mmonit.com/monit/

forever: https://github.com/foreverjs/forever

upstart: http://upstart.ubuntu.com/index.html

Node Web frameworks, so many of them

Express: http://expressjs.com

Hapi from walmartlabs: http://hapijs.com

A good intro about why Hapi was created: http://hueniverse.com/2012/12/20/hapi-a-prologue/

Kraken from paypal: http://krakenjs.com

Restify: http://mcavage.me/node-restify/

Koa, next gen Node Web framework using ES6: http://koajs.com

LoopBack: http://loopback.io

Sailsjs, MVC pattern similar to RoR: http://sailsjs.org

Meteor: https://www.meteor.com

Quite in depth comparison of Express, Koa and hapi: https://www.airpair.com/node.js/posts/nodejs-framework-comparison-express-koa-hapi

hapi vs Express: http://megagalactic.io/hapi-vs-express/

Express, hapi, Sails: http://blog.pluralsight.com/node-web-frameworks

Performance comparison of Express, hapi, and Restify: https://raygun.io/blog/2015/03/node-performance-hapi-express-js-restify/