TechStack

TechStack

# Tech Stack for Profession.is
## Server-side Rendering or Client-side Rendering

### References
* [Server vs client side rendering (AngularJS vs server side MVC)](http://technologyconversations.com/2014/07/10/server-vs-client-side-rendering-angularjs-vs-server-side-mvc/)
* [Client vs serverside rendering – the big battle?](http://blog.mwaysolutions.com/2013/11/08/client-vs-serverside-rendering-the-big-battle-2/)
* [Rendering on the Server and Client in Node.js](http://artsy.github.io/blog/2013/11/30/rendering-on-the-server-and-client-in-node-dot-js/)
* [Short story about rendering HTML, client side vs server side](http://eshlox.net/2014/05/04/short-story-about-rendering-html-client-side-vs-server-side/)

### Decision
**Server-side rendering**. The reasons are as follows:
- Better SEO support
- Faster page loading speed

## Web Framework
### ~~[Meteor](https://www.meteor.com/)~~ 
* Maintain a keep-alive connection with web server, **pure client-side rendering**
* Use Handlebars for template
* Real-time, event-driven
* Ready-to-go Mongodb API

### [Sails](http://sailsjs.org/)
* It is more like a boilerplate for projects using [Express](http://expressjs.com/), [Socket.io](http://socket.io/), [Waterline](https://github.com/balderdashy/waterline), and etc.
* Flexible to implement either server-side rendering pages or single-page apps (Express)
* Supports real-time updates but client-side js is required for interactive response (Socket.io)
* Uses [EJS](http://www.embeddedjs.com/) as default template engine but can be configured to others (Express)
* Provides a uniform API for accessing stuff from different kinds of databases, protocols, and 3rd party APIs (Waterline)
* Poor support for deployment

### [LoopBack](http://loopback.io/)
* Aims to simplify the implementation of end-to-end REST API, and decouple front-end and back-end (It even provides client API for AngularJS, mobile apps). However, you can also implement server-side rendering pages as it is based on Express
* The comparison on its official site: http://loopback.io/resources/
* StrongLoop Arc Build & Deploy, Monitoring, Profiling

### [Derby](http://derbyjs.com/)
* Server rendering 
* Data models provided by [Racer](https://github.com/derbyjs/racer), which enables multiple users and services to interact with the same data objects with realtime conflict resolution
* Derby HTML templates are based on Handlebars
* Poor community

### ~~[MEAN.IO](http://mean.io/)~~
* MEAN means Mongodb, Express, AngularJS, NodeJS
* I have watched the tutorial video on the official site but still don't get what exactly does MEAN.IO do. The packages and modules in MEAN.IO seem complicated and tedious

### [koa](http://koajs.com/) & [hapi](http://hapijs.com/)
* These two are similar to Express in functionalities
* Smaller community than Express
* A comparison found online: [Link](https://www.airpair.com/node.js/posts/nodejs-framework-comparison-express-koa-hapi)

### Conclusion

I think Loopback is our best bet. 

* Express is still the stablest, most used web application framework. We should choose something built on top of Express. This leaves us Sails, Loopback, and MEAN.IO.
* I personally cannot follow the design philosophy of MEAN.IO. 
* The comparison between Sails and Loopback: [link](http://www.quora.com/Which-framework-should-I-choose-Sail-js-or-Loopback-by-Strongloop). I would choose Loopback because its future seems promising, as the company behind Loopback is StrongLoop, which is founded by core committers of Node.js and provides enterprise solutions.