Mastering Node.js: Expert techniques for building fast servers and scalable, real-time network applications with minimal effort

by Sandro Pasquali

Using the JavaScript language you already know, this book will show you how to easily build scalable network software with Node.js. You'll learn through practical examples and clear explanations every step of the way Node.js is a modern development stack focused on providing an easy way to build scalable network software. Backed by a growing number of large companies and a rapidly increasing developer base, Node is revolutionizing the way that software is being built today. Powered by Google?s V8 engine and built out of C++ modules, this is a JavaScript environment for the enterprise. Mastering Node.js will take the reader deep into this exciting development environment. Beginning with a comprehensive breakdown of its innovative non-blocking evented design, Node?s structure is explained in detail, laying out how its blazingly fast I/O performance simplifies the creation of fast servers, scalable architectures, and responsive web applications. Mastering Node.js takes you through a concise yet thorough tour of Node's innovative evented non-blocking design, showing you how to build professional applications with the help of detailed examples. Learn how to integrate your applications with Facebook and Twitter, Amazon and Google, creating social apps and programs reaching thousands of collaborators on the cloud. See how the Express and Path frameworks make the creation of professional web applications painless. Set up one, two, or an entire server cluster with just a few lines of code, ready to scale as soon as you?re ready to launch. Move data seamlessly between databases and file systems, between clients, and across network protocols, using a beautifully designed, consistent, and predictable set of tools. Mastering Node.js contains all of the examples and explanations you?ll need to build applications in a short amount of time and at a low cost, running on a scale and speed that would have been nearly impossible just a few years ago.

Genres: Technology, Technical, Programming

346 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

Reviews

[Arminas Katilius · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book has lot's of content, and starts just fine. It was interesting to read about main goals of Node as a platform and why it was built the way it was. But towards the end it starts to skim through too much topics. Also transition between them seems random at times. I think it could have been much better book if it were shorter and more concice.

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good book to understand nodejs and its filosophy. Recommended

[Blank]

I am reading this in 2023, almost a decade since it was written, and the Node ecosystem has evolved quite a bit over time, yet the fundamentals remain the same.

I came in hoping to get a sense of how NodeJS accomplishes a single-threaded execution context while leveraging on the multi-threaded nature of the operating system, and how the event loop worked. I'm quite pleased to say I learned a lot about this by the time I was done, and more. I'd never had a reason to write Electron before now (still don't — haha!) but I learned how to write an electron app, explored some rather peculiar HTTP headers and some of the common design patterns they employ (I found ETags — Entity Tags — to be a very clever way to prevent unnecessary resource fetching if resources are already cached browser-side).

It probably helps to mention that my server fundamentals were shaky — hence the decision to read this — so if some of the things I am impressed by seem rather commonplace, well you know.

I recommend it for anyone who's ever built a NodeJS server and wondered 'now what?'

[Ossy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite steep, kind of advanced stuffs, but once you get to understand it you enjoy it.