Powers Shelley. - Learning Node: Moving to the Server-Side

Learning Node Second Edition Author Name

Learning Node

by Shelley Powers

Copyright 2016 Shelly Powers. All rights reserved.

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Table of Contents

Preface ix

CHAPTER 1: The Node Environment

Installing Node

Saying Hello to the World with Node

A Basic Hello World Application

Hello World, Tweaked

Node Command-Line Options

Node Hosting Environments

Hosting Node on Your Server, VPS, or Managed Host

Cloud Hosting

The Node LTS and Upgrading Node

Nodes New Semantic Versioning

Upgrading Node

Node, V8, and ES6

Advanced: Node C/C++ Add-ons

CHAPTER 2: Node Building Blocks: the Global Objects, Events, and Nodes Asynchronous Nature

The global and process objects

The global Object

The process Object

Bufers, Typed Arrays, and Strings

Table of Contents

Bufer, JSON, StringDecoder, and UTF-8 Strings

Bufer Manipulation

Nodes Callback and Asynchronous Event Handling

The Event Queue (Loop)

Creating an Asynchronous Callback Function

EventEmitter

The Node Event Loop and Timers

Nested Callbacks and Exception Handling

CHAPTER 3: Basics of Node Modules and Npm

An Overview of the Node Module System

How Node Finds and Loads a Module

Sandboxing and the VM Module

An In-Depth Exploration of NPM

Creating and Publishing Your Own Node Module

Creating a Module

Packaging an Entire Directory

Preparing Your Module for Publication

Publishing the Module

Discovering Node Modules and Three Must-Have Modules

Better Callback Management with async

Command-Line Magic with Commander

The Ubiquitous Underscore

CHAPTER 4: Interactive Node with REPL and More on the Console

REPL: First Looks and Undefined Expressions

Benefits of REPL: Getting a Closer Understanding of JavaScript Under the Hood

Multiline and More Complex JavaScript

REPL Commands

REPL and rlwrap

Custom REPL

Stuf HappensSave Ofen

The Necessity of Console

Console Message Types, Console Class, and Blocking

Table of Contents

Formatting the Message, with Help From util.format() and

util.inspect()

Providing Richer Feedback with console and a Timer

CHAPTER 5: Node and the Web

The HTTP Module: Server and Client

Whats Involved in Creating a Static Web Server

Using Apache to Proxy a Node Application

Parsing the Query with Query String

DNS Resolution

CHAPTER 6: Node and the Local System

Exploring the Operating System

Streams and Pipes

A Formal Introduction to the File System (fs)

The fs.Stats Class

The File System Watcher

File Read and Write

Directory Access and Maintenance

File Streams

Resource Access with Path

Creating a Command-Line Utility

Compression/Decompression with ZLib

Pipes and ReadLine

CHAPTER 7: Networking, Sockets, and Security

Servers, Streams, and Sockets

Sockets and Streams

TCP Sockets and Servers

UDP/Datagram Socket

Guards at the Gate

Setting Up TLS/SSL

Working with HTTPS

The Crypto Module

CHAPTER 8: Child Processes

Table of Contents

child_process.spawn

child_process.exec and child_process.execFile

child_process.fork

Running a Child Process Application in Windows

CHAPTER 9: Node and ES6

Strict Mode

let and const

Arrow Functions

Classes

Promises with Bluebird

CHAPTER 10: Full-stack Node Development

The Express Application Framework

MongoDB and Redis Database Systems

MongoDB

Redis Key/Value Store

AngularJS and Other Full-Stack Frameworks

CHAPTER 11: Node in Development and Production

Debugging Node Applications

The Node Debugger

Node Inspector

Unit Testing

Unit Testing with Assert

Unit Testing with Nodeunit

Other Testing Frameworks

Keeping Node Up and Running

Benchmark and Load Testing with Apache Bench

CHAPTER 12: Node in New Environments

Samsung IoT and GPIO

Windows with Charka Node

Node for Microcontrollers and Microcomputers

Fritzing

Table of Contents

Node and Adruino

Node and Raspberry Pi 2

Preface

Node.js has been around long enough to have achieved adoption by some ma-jor players (LinkedIn, Yahoo!, and Netflix), but is still young enough to be cause for concern from your typical corporate middle manager. Its become a driving force for a more sophisticated JavaScript, as well as the only safe place one can then use the newly improved scripting language. And, since turn-about is fair play, the cutting edge JavaScript has now become the driver for a newly re-vamped Node.js organization and release paradigm.

Node.js has also redefined what we do with JavaScript. Nowadays, an em-ployer is just as likely to demand that JavaScript developers work in a server environment, as well as the more familiar browser. In addition, Node.js has cre-ated a new server language thats generating attention from Ruby, C++, Java, and PHP server-side developers. Especially if these same developers also know JavaScript.

To me, Node.js is fun. Compared to so many other environments, it takes lit-tle efort to get started, to create and host an application, and to try out new things. The scafolding necessary for a Node project just isnt as complex, or pe- dantic, as whats required for other environments. Only PHP has as simple an environment, and even it requires tight integration with Apache to create outward-facing applications.

As simple as it is, though, Node.js has its bits that can be hard to discover. Learning Node.js requires obtaining a mastery of its environment and the core APIs, true. But its also about finding and mastering these hard-to-discover bits.