Node.js is one of the present day's most popular technologies. Its growing community is known to produce a large number of modules every day. These modules can be used as building blocks for server-side applications. The fact that we use the same language (JavaScript) on both the server- and client-side make development fluent.
This book contains 11 chapters that contain a step-by-step guide to building a social network. Systems such as Facebook and Twitter are complex and challenging to develop. It is nice that we will learn what Node.js is capable of, but it is going to be much more interesting if we do that within a concrete context. The book covers basic phases such as the architecture and management of the assets' pipeline, and it discusses features such as users' friendship and real-time communication.
Chapter 1, Node.js Fundamentals, teaches the basics of Node.js, what stands behind the technology, and its module management system and package manager.
Chapter 2, Architecting the Project, reveals the power of build systems such as Gulp. Before starting with our social network, we will plan the project. We will talk about test-driven development and the Model-View-Controller pattern. The chapter will cover the Node.js modules that are needed to bootstrap the project.
Chapter 3, Managing Assets, covers the building of a web application. So, we have to deal with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and images. In this chapter, we will go through the processes behind the serving of assets.
Chapter 4, Developing the Model-View-Controller Layers, is about the basic structure of our application. We will create classes for views, models, and controllers. In the next few chapters, we will use these classes as a base.
Chapter 5, Managing Users, is about implementing user registration, authorization, and profile management.
Chapter 6, Adding Friendship Capabilities, explains one of the main concepts behind modern social networks—friendship. The ability to find friends and follow their walls is an important part. This chapter is dedicated to the development of this relationship between users.
Chapter 7, Posting Content, states that the backbone of every social network is the content that users add into the system. In this chapter, we will implement the process of post making.
Chapter 8, Creating Pages and Events, states that providing the ability to users to create pages and events will make our social network more interesting. Users can add as many pages as they want. Other users will be able to join the newly created places in our network. We will also add code to collect statistics.
Chapter 9, Tagging, Sharing, and Liking, explains that besides posting and reviewing content, the users of a social network should be able to tag, share, and like posts. This chapter is dedicated to the development of these functions.
Chapter 10, Adding Real-time Chat, talks about the expectations of users, in today's world, to see everything that is happening right away. They want to communicate faster with each other. In this chapter, we will develop a real-time chat so that the users can send messages instantly.
Chapter 11, Testing the User Interface, explains that it is important to get the job done, but it is also important to cover working functionalities with tests. In this chapter, we will see how to test a user interface.
The book is based on Node.js version 0.10.36. We will also use MongoDB (http://www.mongodb.org/) as a database and Ractive.js (http://www.ractivejs.org/) as a client-side framework.
If you have knowledge of JavaScript and want to see how you can use it in the backend, this book is for you. It will lead you through the creation of a fairly complex social network. You will learn how to work with a database and create real-time communication channels.
In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.
Code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles are shown as follows: "If the Ractive component has a friends property, then we will render a list of users."
A block of code is set as follows:
<li class="right"><a on-click="goto:logout">Logout</a></li> <li class="right"><a on-click="goto:profile">Profile</a></li> <li class="right"><a on-click="goto:find-friends">Find friends</a></li>
Any command-line input or output is written as follows:
sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install nodejs sudo apt-get install npm
New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "It shows their name and a Add as a friend button."
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