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Node.js Examples – How Enterprises Use Node in 2016

80 points by hfeeri 10y ago

stephenhuey 10y ago
Mostly testimonials, but interesting examples for me to see considering I've just got 6 months of full-time Node.js under my belt after many years in Java and Ruby. There's a link from this blog post to the Node Hero Tutorial and I don't remember coming across this recommendation to organize file structure around features rather than roles: https://blog.risingstack.com/node-hero-node-js-project-structure-tutorial/ https://blog.risingstack.com/node-hero-node-js-project-struc... It looks like a good option to me. I just finished a standalone notification system in one of our Node.js apps and all the files are organized more like this than the typical Rails file structure.
SadWebDeveloper 10y ago
> Ferenc Hámori > PR & Marketing @RisingStack. Confirmed: NodeJS is pure hype.
- lghh 10y ago
  I can't tell if you're being cheeky or not, but the fact that a marketing person wrote this does not confirm anything. Also, why would it even matter?
  - aphextron 10y ago
    To be fair, RisingStack basically exists because of Node hype. It's literally their name. They've been putting out sensationalist articles like this for years.
  - k3n 10y ago
    It's basically free advertising for them, this account has 0 comments and has submitted 100% from risingstack.com -- 12 posts in 2 months. It's obvious they're just trying to drum up traffic (i.e. business).
JoshGlazebrook 10y ago
I've been a Node.js developer for a couple years now and one thing I've noticed is I've never come across a company that actually uses it for their core api. There always seems to be a Java based (or another statically typed typically 'monolith' language) backend api server that smaller node.js microservices/apps communicate with.
- stephenhuey 10y ago
  We're considering switching parts of our Node codebase to TypeScript and I wonder if that will happen to a lot of these APIs you've seen.
- _greim_ 10y ago
  As an anecdotal account, that's not surprising. If it takes, let's say, ten years to get good at something, then people who are good at server-side app-building are going to have roots in other technologies and other ways of thinking about the problem than what Node offers. The Node community is a wide but shallow ocean at this point.
- haukur 10y ago
  As an opposing data point, at my previous employer we built the API with Node.js.
- olalonde 10y ago
  As someone who has been writing core APIs in Node.js for a few years now, one thing I really miss is a good ORM. The best one is probably Bookshelf.js but it's poorly maintained and lags behind more mature ORMs like Active Record in terms of features and stability.
  - ruddct 10y ago
    Not to go too off-topic, but Sequelize is worth a look if you haven't played with it already.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
quantumhobbit 10y ago
Node is pretty viral in the "enterprise". My company is listed in the article and I've seen node sneak into big java projects, you know just to run unit tests for the frontend code. Then it takes on more and more responsibility until the project is a node project with a little java rather than a java project with a little node.
- cheez 10y ago
  Well when the options are Java and Node, even I would choose Node.
  - eweise 10y ago
    I would choose Java. Java 8 with lambda functions and streams library, is a much more pleasant experience than previous versions. If you take the same library over framework approach with Java as you might with Node, you can build microservices just as easily, and docker equalizes the deployment effort. The main advantage I see with Node is working with JSON and a more simplistic concurrency model but to me Java is getting on the reactive bandwagon and beats Node by having more mature and stable libraries and by being statically typed.
    - Scarbutt 10y ago
      What Java libraries are you talking about in this case?
      - joshwa 10y ago
        Not OP, but Spring Boot and the Netflix stack (esp with rxjava) make it super easy to write fast, simple, non-blocking, easily-deployable, monitorable, and resilient microservices. Check out http://start.spring.io/ http://start.spring.io/ and click "switch to the full version" to see the huge variety of battle-tested libraries with excellent integration with Spring Boot.
      - latchkey 10y ago
        Jackson combined with JSOG is great. Resteasy as the endpoint layer with Guice as the DI framework. Project Lombok to remove the java boilerplate. Run that on AppEngine and you have an infinitely autoscaling application with zero downtime. Use Objectify for the ORM with the Datastore. =)
zamalek 10y ago
I really don't like it when a framework is touted to be the be-all-and-end-all. The article tries to put this idea across. Node.js is nothing more than a tool, it is good at some things and bad at others. It is not the ultimate solution that "enterprise" developers can use for any problem.
- collyw 10y ago
  It seems to attract the crowd who do tout it as a tool for everything, which in turn puts me off learning it.
  - asimuvPR 10y ago
    I've been using Django for some years now and have taken an interest in Node.js. In spite of Django (IMO) being simpler to get up and running. Node.js is now everywhere and is making progress in the enterprise stack. What I'd like to know (or make happen) is a Django equivalent in Node.js. Something with a built-in Admin, ORM, and (server side) templating system. Anything stable out there that fits my requirements?
    - collyw 10y ago
      Won't Django channels cover the same sort of tasks?
      - asimuvPR 10y ago
        I've been doing small projects to get settled with channels and it works very nicely. The big difference with node and django is that Node is backed by bigger entities than Django/Python. I love Django, and use it for many things, but JS and node are winning a lot of ground.
daxfohl 10y ago
> Because of the way Node works we can attach debuggers, and set breakpoint steps through the code. If you wanted to debug these groovy scripts in the past, you would make some code changes upload it to the edge layer, run it, see if it breaks, make some more changes, upload it again, and so on Can anyone expand on this? I haven't worked with Groovy, but most languages have debuggers that let you attach to an existing process. Is this something especially great about Node, or something especially horrible about Groovy?
- spriggan3 10y ago
  I'm pretty sure Groovy has a debugger too.
- squeaky-clean 10y ago
  I haven't used Groovy, but some quick googling suggests it might have issues with remote debugging. Also, if that quote is related to the surrounding paragraphs, it sounds like the biggest upgrade isn't so much the node.js debugger, as it is the services being rewritten in a decoupled, non-monolithic way. So now devs can test with local copies of software, instead of requiring an entire infrastructure to be online just to test a single function. The decoupling and microservice mindset aren't specific to node.js, you can achieve those benefits in any language, however it is more idiomatic in node than other stacks,
- eeperson 10y ago
  Yes, Groovy does have a debugger. It is just the Java debugger. I use it nearly every day to work on a Grails project. Also, yes, you can attach it to an existing process. As far as I can tell, that comment doesn't make any sense.
- vorg 10y ago
  Apache Groovy (around v 1.0 or 1.5) used to produce bytecode that could easily be decompiled to Java code, but since version 1.6, the bytecode generated was changed so it couldn't be decompiled with the tool I was using at the time -- I forget what it was, could have been JAD. I know the JVM situation has changed a lot since then, but that breaking change was just one of those many little things that put people off using Groovy for anything more serious than quick'n'dirty scripting. I wouldn't imagine it would be easy to write a Groovy debugger if the bytecode generated is still so non-standard it can't be decompiled to Java source.
Scarbutt 10y ago
How Node.js affected developer productivity at Netflix? The developer productivity comes from breaking down the monolith into smaller, much more manageable pieces. How is that directly related to nodejs only? I mean, you can have a monolith in one language and still break it down into smaller, more manageable pieces in the same language.
- niftich 10y ago
  Marketing and mindshare. Node.js encouraged that architecture as the proper way to compose services, and you got async libraries for free. You could do the same thing in Java, but with frameworks and libraries that weren't as well-known before Node.js became popular.
jaequery 10y ago
Is node.js really ready for mainstream? I've coded javascript for 10+ years and I sometimes laugh at the state is in right now. There's a reason why we are experiencing javascript fatigue and that's because it's not mature to the point it should be mainstream yet. Recently the language tried to tackle the callback hells with es7 async/await but it's way too hacky and I believe it's got quite a ways to go before the language can be used to develop elegant/pragmatic codes.
aphextron 10y ago
>"Instead of two teams, one is a pure back end, and one is a pure front end - consisting seven people overall - a ninja team of five can do both." ...said the manager.
romanovcode 10y ago
> GoDaddy started to use Node for the front-end I don't get it. Do they mean asset compilation etc. How can one use Node in front-end?
- ralusek 10y ago
  I assume they mean they use it to build and serve their web pages, but not necessarily their backend services. Ironically, Node is much better suited for data APIs and backend services.

80 points by hfeeri 10y ago

Mostly testimonials, but interesting examples for me to see considering I've just got 6 months of full-time Node.js under my belt after many years in Java and Ruby. There's a link from this blog post to the Node Hero Tutorial and I don't remember coming across this recommendation to organize file structure around features rather than roles: https://blog.risingstack.com/node-hero-node-js-project-structure-tutorial/ https://blog.risingstack.com/node-hero-node-js-project-struc... It looks like a good option to me. I just finished a standalone notification system in one of our Node.js apps and all the files are organized more like this than the typical Rails file structure.

SadWebDeveloper 10y ago

> Ferenc Hámori > PR & Marketing @RisingStack. Confirmed: NodeJS is pure hype.

lghh 10y ago
I can't tell if you're being cheeky or not, but the fact that a marketing person wrote this does not confirm anything. Also, why would it even matter?
- aphextron 10y ago
  To be fair, RisingStack basically exists because of Node hype. It's literally their name. They've been putting out sensationalist articles like this for years.
- k3n 10y ago
  It's basically free advertising for them, this account has 0 comments and has submitted 100% from risingstack.com -- 12 posts in 2 months. It's obvious they're just trying to drum up traffic (i.e. business).

JoshGlazebrook 10y ago

I've been a Node.js developer for a couple years now and one thing I've noticed is I've never come across a company that actually uses it for their core api. There always seems to be a Java based (or another statically typed typically 'monolith' language) backend api server that smaller node.js microservices/apps communicate with.

stephenhuey 10y ago
We're considering switching parts of our Node codebase to TypeScript and I wonder if that will happen to a lot of these APIs you've seen.
_greim_ 10y ago
As an anecdotal account, that's not surprising. If it takes, let's say, ten years to get good at something, then people who are good at server-side app-building are going to have roots in other technologies and other ways of thinking about the problem than what Node offers. The Node community is a wide but shallow ocean at this point.
haukur 10y ago
As an opposing data point, at my previous employer we built the API with Node.js.
olalonde 10y ago
As someone who has been writing core APIs in Node.js for a few years now, one thing I really miss is a good ORM. The best one is probably Bookshelf.js but it's poorly maintained and lags behind more mature ORMs like Active Record in terms of features and stability.
- ruddct 10y ago
  Not to go too off-topic, but Sequelize is worth a look if you haven't played with it already.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]

quantumhobbit 10y ago

Node is pretty viral in the "enterprise". My company is listed in the article and I've seen node sneak into big java projects, you know just to run unit tests for the frontend code. Then it takes on more and more responsibility until the project is a node project with a little java rather than a java project with a little node.

cheez 10y ago
Well when the options are Java and Node, even I would choose Node.
- eweise 10y ago
  I would choose Java. Java 8 with lambda functions and streams library, is a much more pleasant experience than previous versions. If you take the same library over framework approach with Java as you might with Node, you can build microservices just as easily, and docker equalizes the deployment effort. The main advantage I see with Node is working with JSON and a more simplistic concurrency model but to me Java is getting on the reactive bandwagon and beats Node by having more mature and stable libraries and by being statically typed.
  - Scarbutt 10y ago
    What Java libraries are you talking about in this case?
    - joshwa 10y ago
      Not OP, but Spring Boot and the Netflix stack (esp with rxjava) make it super easy to write fast, simple, non-blocking, easily-deployable, monitorable, and resilient microservices. Check out http://start.spring.io/ http://start.spring.io/ and click "switch to the full version" to see the huge variety of battle-tested libraries with excellent integration with Spring Boot.
    - latchkey 10y ago
      Jackson combined with JSOG is great. Resteasy as the endpoint layer with Guice as the DI framework. Project Lombok to remove the java boilerplate. Run that on AppEngine and you have an infinitely autoscaling application with zero downtime. Use Objectify for the ORM with the Datastore. =)

zamalek 10y ago

I really don't like it when a framework is touted to be the be-all-and-end-all. The article tries to put this idea across. Node.js is nothing more than a tool, it is good at some things and bad at others. It is not the ultimate solution that "enterprise" developers can use for any problem.

collyw 10y ago
It seems to attract the crowd who do tout it as a tool for everything, which in turn puts me off learning it.
- asimuvPR 10y ago
  I've been using Django for some years now and have taken an interest in Node.js. In spite of Django (IMO) being simpler to get up and running. Node.js is now everywhere and is making progress in the enterprise stack. What I'd like to know (or make happen) is a Django equivalent in Node.js. Something with a built-in Admin, ORM, and (server side) templating system. Anything stable out there that fits my requirements?
  - collyw 10y ago
    Won't Django channels cover the same sort of tasks?
    - asimuvPR 10y ago
      I've been doing small projects to get settled with channels and it works very nicely. The big difference with node and django is that Node is backed by bigger entities than Django/Python. I love Django, and use it for many things, but JS and node are winning a lot of ground.

daxfohl 10y ago

> Because of the way Node works we can attach debuggers, and set breakpoint steps through the code. If you wanted to debug these groovy scripts in the past, you would make some code changes upload it to the edge layer, run it, see if it breaks, make some more changes, upload it again, and so on Can anyone expand on this? I haven't worked with Groovy, but most languages have debuggers that let you attach to an existing process. Is this something especially great about Node, or something especially horrible about Groovy?

spriggan3 10y ago
I'm pretty sure Groovy has a debugger too.
squeaky-clean 10y ago
I haven't used Groovy, but some quick googling suggests it might have issues with remote debugging. Also, if that quote is related to the surrounding paragraphs, it sounds like the biggest upgrade isn't so much the node.js debugger, as it is the services being rewritten in a decoupled, non-monolithic way. So now devs can test with local copies of software, instead of requiring an entire infrastructure to be online just to test a single function. The decoupling and microservice mindset aren't specific to node.js, you can achieve those benefits in any language, however it is more idiomatic in node than other stacks,
eeperson 10y ago
Yes, Groovy does have a debugger. It is just the Java debugger. I use it nearly every day to work on a Grails project. Also, yes, you can attach it to an existing process. As far as I can tell, that comment doesn't make any sense.
vorg 10y ago
Apache Groovy (around v 1.0 or 1.5) used to produce bytecode that could easily be decompiled to Java code, but since version 1.6, the bytecode generated was changed so it couldn't be decompiled with the tool I was using at the time -- I forget what it was, could have been JAD. I know the JVM situation has changed a lot since then, but that breaking change was just one of those many little things that put people off using Groovy for anything more serious than quick'n'dirty scripting. I wouldn't imagine it would be easy to write a Groovy debugger if the bytecode generated is still so non-standard it can't be decompiled to Java source.

Scarbutt 10y ago

How Node.js affected developer productivity at Netflix? The developer productivity comes from breaking down the monolith into smaller, much more manageable pieces. How is that directly related to nodejs only? I mean, you can have a monolith in one language and still break it down into smaller, more manageable pieces in the same language.

niftich 10y ago
Marketing and mindshare. Node.js encouraged that architecture as the proper way to compose services, and you got async libraries for free. You could do the same thing in Java, but with frameworks and libraries that weren't as well-known before Node.js became popular.

jaequery 10y ago

Is node.js really ready for mainstream? I've coded javascript for 10+ years and I sometimes laugh at the state is in right now. There's a reason why we are experiencing javascript fatigue and that's because it's not mature to the point it should be mainstream yet. Recently the language tried to tackle the callback hells with es7 async/await but it's way too hacky and I believe it's got quite a ways to go before the language can be used to develop elegant/pragmatic codes.

aphextron 10y ago

>"Instead of two teams, one is a pure back end, and one is a pure front end - consisting seven people overall - a ninja team of five can do both." ...said the manager.

romanovcode 10y ago

> GoDaddy started to use Node for the front-end I don't get it. Do they mean asset compilation etc. How can one use Node in front-end?

ralusek 10y ago
I assume they mean they use it to build and serve their web pages, but not necessarily their backend services. Ironically, Node is much better suited for data APIs and backend services.