GameTime: Webpack v Node

webpack-v-node.markdown

Webpack

• 'module bundler'
• Introduction to Build Tools Lesson

Use Cases Where Webpack May Not Be Enough

• Multiple pages, endpoints
• A relational database
• Websockets
• Hosting complex client side apps
  • Check out this React App

Node

Node is a platform for JavaScript applications. Blending the virtual machine that Google Chrome uses (V8) for server-side programming.

The official definition of Node.js is 'a platform built on Chrome's JavaScript runtime for easily building fast, scalable network applications. Node.js uses and event-driven, non-blocking I/O model that makes it lightweight and efficient for data-intensive real-time applications that run across distributed devices'

More Info and Opinions

• Node tries to keep consistency between the browser and the server by reimplementing common host objects, such as:
  • Timer API (i.e. setTimeout)
  • Console API (i.e. console.log)

Benefits to Node over, say, Rails

• Same language on server and client - less cognitive switch
• Server, since based on Chrome, has the newest and most up to date versions of the language

Async

Ajax in the browser:

$.post('/resource.json', function (data){
  console.log(data);
});

The filesystem in node:

var fs = require('fs');
fs.readFile('./resource.json', function (er, data){
  console.log(data);
})

Both calls require an async response

Resources

• Building and Deploying Node to Heroku
  • One of the most simple tutorials that covers actually creating and deploying a boilder plate node server