A talk I gave at London Ajax about building a Node app

1. Building a real-life
application in Node JS
Darren Waddell

2. ME ME ME ME ME
• MooTools Developer
• Love JavaScript!
• C# Developer
• Love building big apps!

3. OMG
JAVASCRIPT
SERVER!

4. ‘Real-life applications’
• Websites
• Content Management Systems
• Blog Engines
• (Not games, chat programs, ‘Native HTML5’
fish demos)

5. I’LL BUILD
A CMS!

6. What did I need to
start
• OSX! (or linux)
• Install Node and NPM
• A DB (MongoDB)

7. Confusing things!
• Non-blocking, event driven, asynchronous
• NoSQL
• Modules and NPM
• No Firebug!

8. Things I need for my
app
• Routing
• Database
• Templating

9. Express
Setting up server
var app = require('express').createServer();
app.get('/', function(req, res){
res.send('hello world');
});
app.listen(80);

10. Express
Setting up View handler
app.set('view engine', 'jade');
app.set('views', __dirname + '/views');
app.get('/foo/bar', function(req, res){
res.render('foo/bar');
// calls /views/foo/bar.jade
});
app.listen(80);

11. Express
Setting up ‘static assets’
var app = require('express').createServer();
app.use(
express.static(__dirname + '/public')
);
<script type=”foo.js”></script>
// is at http://foo.com/foo.js
// NOT http://foo.com/public/foo.js

12. Express
Passing data to views
app.get('/foo/bar', function(req, res){
res.render('foo/bar', {
locals: {
foo: ‘bar’
}
});
});

13. Express
Passing data to views
app.get('/users/:id', function(req, res){
// req.params contains
// the querystring values
var id = req.params.id;
});

14. Express
Passing data to views
app.use(express.bodyParser());
app.post('/users/:id', function(req, res){
// req.body contains the postback
var username = req.body.name;
});

15. Express
‘Master Pages’
app.set('view options', {
layout: 'shared/layout'
});
app.get('/foo/bar', function(req, res){
res.render('foo/bar');
});

16. Things I need for my
app
• Routing
• Database
• Templating

17. Mongo DB
• No tables! ‘Collections’
• No Rows! ‘Documents’
• No columns! ‘Fields’
• JSON format!
• No SQL joins!
• Flexible table collection structure

18. Mongo DB
select * from ‘foo’
db.foo.find({});

19. Mongo DB
insert into ‘foo’
set (‘foobar’)
values (‘whatever’);
db.foo.insert({
‘foobar’: ‘whatever’
});

20. Mongo DB
delete from ‘foo’
where ‘name’ = ‘Darren’
db.foo.remove({
‘name’:‘Darren’
});

21. Mongoose
• Models
• Getters and Setters, Defaults,Validators
• Avoid callback soup (very important!)

22. Mongoose
Simple modelling
var mongoose = require(‘mongoose’);
mongoose.connect(‘mongodb://localhost/myDB’);
var User = new mongoose.Schema({
username: String,
fullname: String,
password: String
});
var myUserModel = mongoose.model(‘User’);
myUserModel.find({}, function(err, docs){
docs.forEach(function(user){
// do stuff
});
});

23. Mongoose
Simple modelling
var mongoose = require(‘mongoose’);
mongoose.connect(‘mongodb://localhost/myDB’);
var User = new mongoose.Schema({
username: String,
fullname: String,
password: String
});
var myUserModel = mongoose.model(‘User’);
myUserModel.username = ‘fakedarren’;
myUserModel.fullname = ‘William Waddell’;
myUserModel.save();

24. Mongoose
Simple modelling
var myUserModel = mongoose.model(‘User’);
myUserModel.username = ‘fakedarren’;
myUserModel.fullname = ‘William Waddell’;
myUserModel.save();

25. MongooseDefault values
var mongoose = require(‘mongoose’);
mongoose.connect(‘mongodb://localhost/myDB’);
var User = new mongoose.Schema({
username: String,
fullname: String,
password: String,
role: {
type: String,
default: ‘Admin’
}
});

26. Mongoose
Getters and Setters
var mongoose = require(‘mongoose’);
mongoose.connect(‘mongodb://localhost/myDB’);
var User = new mongoose.Schema({
username: String,
fullname: String,
password: String
});
User.path(‘password’).set(function(value){
if (password.length < 8){
return new Error(‘Password must be more than 8 characters’);
} else {
return value;
}
});

27. Mongoose
Middleware / promises / whatever it’s called
User.pre(‘save’, function(next){
// do something
next();
});
User.pre(‘save’, function(next){
// do something else
next();
});
var myUserModel = mongoose.model(‘User’);
myUserModel.username = ‘fakedarren’;
myUserModel.fullname = ‘William Waddell’;
myUserModel.save();

28. Things I need for my
app
• Routing
• Database
• Templating

29. View Engines
HAML
Jade
EJS
CoffeeKup
jQuery Templates

30. View Engines
HAML
Jade
EJS
CoffeeKup
jQuery Templates

31. Jade
http://jade-lang.com/
!!! 5
html(lang="en")
head
title= pageTitle
script(type='text/javascript')
if (foo) {
bar()
}
body
h1 Jade - node template engine
#container
- if (youAreUsingJade)
p You are amazing
- else
p Get on it!

32. !!! 5
html(lang="en")
head
title= pageTitle
script(type='text/javascript')
if (foo) {
bar()
}
body
h1 Jade - node template engine
#container
- if (youAreUsingJade)
p You are amazing
- else
p Get on it!

33. EJS
https://github.com/visionmedia/ejs
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Awesome</title>
</head>
<body>
<% if (names.length) { %>
<ul>
<% names.forEach(function(name){ %>
<li><%= name %></li>
<% }) %>
</ul>
<% } %>
</body>
</html>

34. <!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Awesome</title>
</head>
<body>
<% if (names.length) { %>
<ul>
<% names.forEach(function(name){ %>
<li><%= name %></li>
<% }) %>
</ul>
<% } %>
</body>
</html>

35. Things I need for my
app
• Routing
• Database
• Templating

36. Things I need for my
app
• Routing
• Database
• Templating
• And a million other things....

37. Thanks!
@fakedarren
https://github.com/fakedarren/node-cms