Book Image

Node.js Design Patterns

By : Mario Casciaro
Book Image

Node.js Design Patterns

By: Mario Casciaro

Overview of this book

Node.js is a massively popular software platform that lets you use JavaScript to easily create scalable server-side applications. It allows you to create efficient code, enabling a more sustainable way of writing software made of only one language across the full stack, along with extreme levels of reusability, pragmatism, simplicity, and collaboration. Node.js is revolutionizing the web and the way people and companies create their software. In this book, we will take you on a journey across various ideas and components, and the challenges you would commonly encounter while designing and developing software using the Node.js platform. You will also discover the "Node.js way" of dealing with design and coding decisions. The book kicks off by exploring the fundamental principles and components that define the platform. It then shows you how to master asynchronous programming and how to design elegant and reusable components using well-known patterns and techniques. The book rounds off by teaching you the various approaches to scale, distribute, and integrate your Node.js application.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
Node.js Design Patterns
Credits
About the Author
Acknowledgments
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Sharing code with the browser


One of the main selling point of Node.js is the fact that it's based on JavaScript and runs on V8, an engine that actually powers one of the most popular browsers: Chrome. We might think that that's enough to conclude that sharing code between Node.js and the browser is an easy task; however as we will see, this is not always true. Unless we want to share only some small, self-contained and generic fragments of code, developing for both the client and the server requires a non-negligible level of effort in making sure that the same code can run properly in two environments that are intrinsically different. For example, in Node.js we don't have the DOM or long-living views, while in the browser we surely don't have the filesystem or the ability to start new processes. Most of the effort required when developing for both the platforms is making sure to reduce those differences to the minimum. This can be done with the help of abstractions and patterns that enable...