Book Image

Professional JavaScript

By : Hugo Di Francesco, Siyuan Gao, Vinicius Isola, Philip Kirkbride
Book Image

Professional JavaScript

By: Hugo Di Francesco, Siyuan Gao, Vinicius Isola, Philip Kirkbride

Overview of this book

In depth knowledge of JavaScript makes it easier to learn a variety of other frameworks, including React, Angular, and related tools and libraries. This book is designed to help you cover the core JavaScript concepts you need to build modern applications. You'll start by learning how to represent an HTML document in the Document Object Model (DOM). Then, you'll combine your knowledge of the DOM and Node.js to create a web scraper for practical situations. As you read through further lessons, you'll create a Node.js-based RESTful API using the Express library for Node.js. You'll also understand how modular designs can be used for better reusability and collaboration with multiple developers on a single project. Later lessons will guide you through building unit tests, which ensure that the core functionality of your program is not affected over time. The book will also demonstrate how constructors, async/await, and events can load your applications quickly and efficiently. Finally, you'll gain useful insights into functional programming concepts such as immutability, pure functions, and higher-order functions. By the end of this book, you'll have the skills you need to tackle any real-world JavaScript development problem using a modern JavaScript approach, both for the client and server sides.
Table of Contents (12 chapters)

Introduction

In the previous chapter, we built an API using Node.js and Express. We talked about designing the API structure, HTTP methods, and JSON Web Token (JWT) authentication. In this chapter, we'll be looking at various aspects of JavaScript modules and module-based design.

Modules are important for programming productivity, breaking software into reusable modules. The modular design encourages developers to build software out of small, single-focus components. You may be familiar with popular UI libraries, such as Bootstrap, Material-UI, and jQuery UI. These are all sets of components – minimal graphical elements purposefully built so that they can be used in many situations.

Due to the extensive use of external libraries for both graphical elements and programming aspects, most developers are already familiar with the use of modules. That said, it is much easier to use a module than to create one or to write your application in a modular way.

Note Components...