CSCI 421 - Lecture 10

Instructor's Class Notes

• Chapter 7 - Templating with Handlebars
1. Similar to EJS, has partials, looping, etc. and is in-line with HTML.
2. Has Views and Templates (which are actually pretty cool).
• Chapter 8 - Form Handling
1. General overview of forms.
2. Handling forms with Express.
3. File upload form - Useful for many websites where user can upload a file.
• Chapter 9 - Cookies and Sessions
1. Describes the use of cookies, cautions against abusing them (used too much).
2. How to use one cookie with session id.
3. Managing session on the server.
• Chapter 10 - Middleware
1. Introduces the idea of middleware, which are the modules and libraries that provide useful additional Express features.
2. List of Common Middleware (give it a read).
• Chapter 11 - Sending Email
1. Your website may need to send or receive email, automatically. This chapter describes how.
2. HTML Email - How to write a good HTML email.
3. Nodemailer - a module that sends email.
4. Using email to send alerts to admins when your site breaks.
• Chapter 12 - Production Concerns
1. Environment specific configurations (dev vs production).
2. Scaling techniques reviewed (app clusters, multiple servers).
3. Monitoring your website.
4. Stress testing via loadtest.
• Chapter 13 - Persistence
1. Filesystem persistence.
2. Cloud persistence - AWS S3 example... I highly recommend this.
3. Database persistence - Overview of MongoDB.
4. Using MongoDB for Session Storage - currency format preference example.
• Chapter 14 - Routing
1. Good collection of Dos and Don'ts for URL conventions.
2. Routes and SEO (search order optimization).
3. Subdomains - when to use.
4. Overview of how to program routes in Express (you already know this).
• Chapter 15 - REST APIs and JSON
1. Mostly things you already know.
2. CORS - Cross-Original Resource Sharing; a very good resource on how to update your Express app should it need to use a REST API from another domain.