Book Image

Mastering JavaScript Single Page Application Development

Book Image

Mastering JavaScript Single Page Application Development

Overview of this book

Single-page web applications—or SPAs, as they are commonly referred to—are quickly becoming the de facto standard for web app development. The fact that a major part of the app runs inside a single web page makes it very interesting and appealing. Also, the accelerated growth of browser capabilities is pushing us closer to the day when all apps will run entirely in the browser. This book will take your JavaScript development skills to the next level by teaching you to create a single-page application within a full-stack JavaScript environment. Using only JavaScript, you can go from being a front-end developer to a full-stack application developer with relative ease. You will learn to cross the boundary from front-end development to server-side development through the use of JavaScript on both ends. Use your existing knowledge of JavaScript by learning to manage a JSON document data store with MongoDB, writing a JavaScript powered REST API with Node.js and Express, and designing a front-end powered by AngularJS. This book will teach you to leverage the MEAN stack to do everything from document database design, routing REST web API requests, data-binding within views, and adding authentication and security to building a full-fledged, complex, single-page web application. In addition to building a full-stack JavaScript app, you will learn to test it with JavaScript-powered testing tools such as Mocha, Karma, and Jasmine. Finally, you will learn about deployment and scaling so that you can launch your own apps into the real world.
Table of Contents (20 chapters)
Mastering JavaScript Single Page Application Development
Credits
About the Authors
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Free Chapter
1
Getting Organized with NPM, Bower, and Grunt
13
Testing with Mocha, Karma, and More

The Node.js environment


Node.js is a runtime environment built to execute JavaScript. With it, you can build powerful software, such as full-fledged backend web servers. In Chapter 1 , Getting Organized with NPM, Bower, and Grunt, you began to use some Node.js-based tools, such as Grunt, NPM, and the Node Package Manager.

Node.js is powerful, and extremely fast. It is based on the V8 JavaScript engine that's used in the Chrome browser and is tuned for speed. It uses a non-blocking I/O that allows it to handle many requests simultaneously.

This chapter assumes that you have already installed the Node runtime. If not, go to https://nodejs.org, and follow the installation instructions for your operating system Node version 4.3.2 has been used in this book.

Running the REPL

Node.js provides a way to enter a run JavaScript code from the command line called the Read-Eval-Print Loop or REPL. You can start the REPL simply by typing node at the command line in a console. It's a great way to begin exploring...