A practical walkthrough of building an app server side with JavaScript (Node.js). Starting with Node.js use cases, then defining routes, synchronising the database and finally serving files.

Build Your First Node App

Preface

There are plenty of definitions to be found online. Let’s take a look at a couple of the more popular ones:

What Is Node.js?

Now that we know what Node and npm are and how to install them, we can turn our attention to the first of their common uses: they’re used to install (npm) and run (Node) various build tools — tools designed to automate the process of developing a modern JavaScript application.

What Is Node.js Used For?

Today, we’re going to build the basic functionality of our note-taking app using the MVC architecture. As I mentioned earlier, we’re going to employ the Hapi.js framework for Node.js and SQLite as a database, using Sequelize.js , plus other small utilities to speed up our development. We’re going to build the views using Pug , the templating language.

Laying the Foundations of Our App

The definition of routes gives us an overview of the functionality supported by our application. To create our additional routes, we just have to replicate the structure of the route that we already have in our server.js file, changing the content of each one.

Defining the Routes

Models allow us to define the structure of the data and all the functions to work with it.

Building the Models

Now, we have to synchronize our database before we’re able to use it in our application. In server.js , import the models at the top of the file:

Synchronizing the Database

Boilerplate of the Note Controller

At this point, our site is receiving HTTP calls and responding with JSON objects. To make it useful to everybody we have to create the pages that render our information in a nice way.

Building the Views

To make use of our views, we have to include them in our controllers and add the required settings.

Community Questions