Introduction to Node.js and Express

After creating the browser window drawing application I conducted research to inform the team about Node.js and Express for Node.js. These are the technologies that we will use to create a web API that allows our browser, server and database to communicate with each other through requests and responses. I was only able to conduct a small amount of research. I will be conducting more in the future on the topic of databases and the transferring of images. No failures other than not doing as much research as I would have liked. The notes I took are introductory, I chose not to include actual code in my notes because the helpful code is within the links I provided.

This is a short document of important points and educational resources.

Node.js

• JavaScript-based framework for building event-oriented servers
• a platform that allows JavaScript to be used outside the Web Browsers
• create the server and server-side code for an application like most of the other web languages but using JavaScript
• built on Google Chrome's JavaScript Engine
• All APIs of Node.js library are asynchronous, that is, non-blocking. It essentially means a Node.js based server never waits for an API to return data. The server moves to the next API after calling it and a notification mechanism of Events of Node.js helps the server to get a response from the previous API call.

Helpful Text

http://nodeguide.com/beginner.html

https://www.tutorialspoint.com/nodejs/nodejs_introduction.htm

Video Example

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjULmG8fqc8

API / Web API

• An application programming interface (API) for either a web server or a web browser
• The messenger that takes requests and tells a system what you want to do, and then return the response back to you.

Helpful Text

https://www.idigbio.org/wiki/images/2/21/2015-03-12-F2DB-Apis.pdf

Video about API

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7wmiS2mSXY

Express JS

• Express is a minimal and flexible Node.js web application framework.
• You can install it with Node Package Manager. [ $ npm install express] use @ to install a specific version
• Creating a robust API is quick and easy
• Allows to dynamically render HTML Pages based on passing arguments to templates.
• set up middlewares to respond to HTTP Requests.
• Defines a routing table which is used to perform different actions based on HTTP Method and URL.
• Routing refers to determining how an application responds to a client request to a particular endpoint, which is a URI (or path) and a specific HTTP request method (GET, POST, and so on).
• Request Object − The request object represents the HTTP request and has properties for the request query string, parameters, body, HTTP headers, and so on.
• Response Object − The response object represents the HTTP response that an Express app sends when it gets an HTTP request.
• Express uses GET and POST methods

Helpful text

https://www.tutorialspoint.com/nodejs/nodejs_express_framework.htm\

Video (introduction to express)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjXAr5CJ2Ec