Mastering Node.js Web Development: Go on a comprehensive journey from the fundamentals to advanced web development with Node.js

Fundamentals to Advanced concepts in Node.js web development
I’ve read several books by Adam Freeman, mostly related to web development using ASP.NET and ASP.NET MVC. Recently, I picked up his book on Node.js to enhance my skills in that area. This well-structured book is aimed at professionals who want to improve or elevate their skill set. Let’s dive into the details:Prerequisites and Environment Setup: Adam discusses the prerequisites for Node.js web development, including setting up the development environment and understanding the book’s structure. He also addresses how to handle any issues that may arise while working through the examples. Additionally, he covers the installation and usage of Node.js tools, such as Git, code editors, npm, and script commands, emphasizing their importance for efficient Node.js development.JavaScript and TypeScript Primer: The book provides a refresher on JavaScript and TypeScript, focusing on features that express type expectations, basic syntax, operators, functions, arrays, objects, and modules. It also explains server code execution, multi-threaded execution, blocking vs. non-blocking operations, and how Node.js handles concurrency using events and promises.Security and Streams: Adam details the process of creating a self-signed certificate using OpenSSL and handling HTTPS requests. He emphasizes the importance of SSL certificates for secure web applications. Additionally, he introduces the concept of streams in Node.js, discussing their usefulness in handling data sources and destinations, along with common methods and associated events.Handling Form Data and Databases: The book describes how to handle form data from HTTP requests, including parsing form data using Express middleware and sanitizing data values for safe inclusion in HTML responses. It also covers selecting and using database engines, creating SQL tables, and implementing a repository layer to isolate the database from the application.Error Handling and Advanced Concepts: Adam focuses on error handling in Node.js applications, demonstrating how to generate responses for different HTTP status codes using templates and configure error handlers. He then explains the implementation of a shopping cart, including the data model, adding products to the cart, creating a cart summary, and displaying cart details. Finally, the book covers managing product data, including displaying product details, editing, deleting products, and integrating with a web service for dynamic content updates.In summary, each chapter builds upon the previous ones, guiding readers from fundamentals to advanced concepts in Node.js web development.”

It has everything one may need to program in NodeJS
I am still digesting this book (at about half of through), but it answered my relatively newbie questions already and I found the most difficult (for me it was the Node’s code execution, concurrency model) topics explained so well I am not worried I can embrace the modern NodeJS – based Web development.I found the most precious the topics on data models, debugging and RESTFULL services ( I am on a data wrangling spree ). The real application example is a real gem – allows to solidify and repeat learn the material.The harder parts I wish could be easier are the ones on security, Docker and deployment in general.My advice for a book reader – learn the NPM commands and make helper scripts.

First 3 chapters do a good job introducing the reader into the environment. The premier is reduced to only one chapter yet enough to get the essentials of JS and TS to continue with the main topic of the book; Node.js. Although I personally believe the first chapter could be an introduction or a preface rather than a chapter per se.From here I recommend having the Node.js documentation (and maybe the JS’ if you’ve missed or didn’t get something in the premier). Concurrency and streams aren’t an easy cookie so you’ll struggle a bit because of the abstractions Node does.Unit testing was one of my favourites chapters (after the premier). The author shares his experience and teaches testing in a short and concise manner. Even though I believe there’s room to include more examples you could read a more specialised book in this matter.After that tough passage we’re ready to start diving into more web-dev stuff. And the book does a great job showing the potential of pure Node and also some third-party libraries. The thing I liked the most at this point is that until now the author has used a code style similar to mine. Trying to get everything in their place and taking advantage of modules as much as possible. This makes the code examples (and projects) cleaner, therefore easier to follow.And finally we get to the capstone of the book (IMO). The big project “Sports Store”. Even though I’m not a big fan of splitting the project in many chapters I believe the author made the right call here. Since the project evolves to the point we prepare it to be deployed in a production environment using containers. Of course there’re many ways to do that depending on your actual project.Things I didn’t like:
 – Summary tables at the beginning of the chapters may be confusing or even can give the reader the notion that they already know enough. – This might be subjective. I believe the author shouldn’t take that big shot trying to stuff a lot of things in a unique book. I think the author could’ve omitted the premier part (even though it was a good chapter) to include more details in the node.js stuff. That he includes references (some links are broken BTW) but could have been included as a summary at least. For example the event loop Node uses; the phases to be more concrete. Things I did like:
 – Good code samples. Clean and right to the point. Highlighting the important stuff.
 – The project is one that gives the reader a sense of working in a real-world project. I mean this in a way that the author makes the project grow progressively – Not sure if the author intended this book to be beginner friendly. But this books is beginner friendly enough to get you ready to start developing web apps. The rest comes from here comes from experience.

Come da titolo, penso che questo libro sia la guida più esaustiva a Node.js.Nelle +750 pagine che lo compongono sono trattati tutti, ma proprio tutti gli argomenti necessari per poter padroneggiare questa tecnologia.Diverse cose mi sono piaciute particolarmente: 🔽1️⃣ Non è solo un “semplice” manuale, ma è stato realizzato in maniera molto saggia a mio parere: tutti i concetti e le varie tematiche relative alle più importanti funzioni server-side vengono prima illustrate utilizzando le API di Node.js.In questo modo si acquisisce una conoscenza profonda del motore e del suo funzionamento.Dopo essersi sporcati le mani con le funzionalità native di Node, si passa invece ad utilizzare, per le stesse funzionalità richieste dal web development, dei pacchetti ben conosciuti e ben testati.Questo approccio, passare da una conoscenza “under the hood” a dei pacchetti pronti all’uso è molto intelligente poichè quando emergeranno dei problemi (e come ben sappiamo purtroppo in tutti i progetti i problemi emergono…) si avranno delle solide basi che permetteranno di capirne velocemente l’origine.2️⃣ Nonostante non sia una guida al linguaggio, è presente un corposo capitolo sui linguaggi JavaScript e TypeScript.3️⃣ Immancabile progetto finale nel quale si realizza un sito di e-commerce realistico, completo di tutte le funzionalità (catalogo, autenticazione, shopping card, checkout…).4️⃣ L’autore, Adam Freeman, come indicato anche nel libro, ha all’attivo ben 53 (!) libri di programmazione. Sa bene quindi come vanno scritti e questo libro ne è la prova:ogni argomento è trattato in maniera pratica, lo stile di scrittura è quasi “amichevole”; all’inizio di ogni capitolo è presente una tabella che risponde velocemente alle domande che giustamente si è portati a porsi su quell’argomento, la trattazione è fluida e senza fronzoli.Inoltre sono presenti INNUMEREVOLI esempi di codice.Questo da un lato invoglia a studiare piacevolmente, dall’altro si rivela molto pratico quando si ha la necessità di cercare velocemente una soluzione immediata ad un problema che si sta affrontando: trovare ciò che si cerca in questo modo diventa istantaneo.Completano poi la dotazione tutte le risorse fornite generalmente da “packt” con i suoi libri (PDF a corredo, supporto diretto dell’autore – tra l’altro ben disponibile a ricevere email 😉)✅E’ davvero un manule esaustivo, lo consiglio vivamente a chiunque abbia intenzione di imparare a realizzare applicazioni web o a chi intenda diventare Full-Stack Developer, dato che i Backend realizzati con Node.js possono essere utilizzati da qualsiasi framework utilizzato per il Frontend (Angular, React, etc).