A practical introduction to Node.js, an exciting server-side JavaScript web development stack

Overview

Learn about server-side JavaScript with Node.js and Node modules.

Website development both with and without the Connect/Express web application framework.

Developing both HTTP server and client applications.

In Detail

Node.js is a JavaScript platform using an event-driven, non-blocking I/O model allowing users to build fast and scalable data-intensive applications that run in real time.

This book gives you an excellent starting point and goes straight to the heart of developing web applications with Node.js. You will go from a rudimentary knowledge of JavaScript or server-side application development to being able to create and maintain your own Node.js application.

Node Web Development shows that JavaScript is not just for browsers anymore. It can be used for web application development, for developing any Internet protocol, for real-time applications, and much more. With this book you will learn through practical examples how to use the HTTP Server and client objects as well as both SQL and MongoDB databases. The book explains how application algorithms are expected to cooperate correctly with the event loop, and gives advice on algorithm refactoring for asynchronous execution through the event loop.

What you will learn from this book

Discover the role of server-side JavaScript in web application development

Explore architecture choices in Node.js for performance and throughput

Install and use Node.js for both development and deployment

Use the Connect and Express application frameworks

Deploy both SQL and MongoDB database systems

Approach

Presented in a simple, step-by-step format, this book is an introduction to web development with Node.

Who this book is written for

This book is for anybody looking for an alternative to the "P" languages (Perl, PHP, Python), or anyone looking for a new paradigm of server-side application development. The reader should have at least a rudimentary understanding of JavaScript and web application development.

David Herron

David Herron has worked as a software engineer and software quality engineer in Silicon Valley for over 20 years. Recently he worked for Yahoo! as an architect of the Quality Engineering team for their new Node.js based web app platform (Manhattan and Mojito).

While a staff engineer at Sun Microsystems, David worked as an architect of the Java SE Quality Engineering team where he focused on test automation tools, including the AWT Robot class that's now widely used in GUI test automation software. He was involved with launching the OpenJDK project, and other open source activities related to Java.

Before Sun he worked for VXtreme on the video streaming stack which eventually became Windows Media Player when Microsoft bought that company. At The Wollongong Group he worked on both the e-mail client and server software and was part of several IETF working groups improving e-mail-related protocols.

David is interested in electric vehicles, world energy supplies, climate change, and environmental issues, and is a co-founder of Transition Silicon Valley. As an online journalist, he writes about electric cars and other green technology for PlugInCars.com, TorqueNews.com, Examiner.com, LongTailPipe.com, and ElectricRaceNews.com. He runs a large electric vehicle discussion website on VisForVoltage.org, and blogs about other topics including Node.js, Drupal, and Doctor Who on DavidHerron.com. Using Node.js, he has developed a Content Management System called AkashaCMS (akashacms.com) that produces static HTML websites.