Does building a web server sound complicated? But it doesn’t have to be. Do you know that you can create a web server in a couple of lines of code? Yes. You can create a web server in a couple of lines of code with the help of Node.js. Research says that around 49% of software developers use Node.js in building advanced blogs.

Now, let us see what exactly the term Node.js is.

What is Node.js?

Node.js is an open-source JavaScript runtime environment. It functions on various computing platforms. Chrome’s V8 JavaScript engine is used for building Node.js

The engine can successfully convert JavaScript code into an efficient low-level machine code that can operate on the computers without any interpretation. 

Node.js operates on the computers as a standalone application. 

This unifies the web application development around the single programming language rather than using various styles for the server-side projects and the client-side scripts.

Node.js has an Event-Driven Architecture (EDA) which permits the asynchronous input and output functions. The set up also allows enhancing the scalability and the throughput in the web applications that have several I/O operations and real-time web-based applications like browser games. It is always essential to understand that while the JavaScript files have the extension .js, “Node.js” is the product name in the reference frame.

How Node.js aids in building applications?

Node.js consists of all the features you need whenever you run a program written in JavaScript. This allows you to use JavaScript to code the command line tools. In addition to that, it also enables server scripting, thereby permitting to create dynamic web page content before you send it to the user’s browser. 

What is Node.js used for?

Node.js is used in various applications. The experts say that Node.js has increasing demand coming second to Big Data specialists. The main reason for these increasing demands is multiple uses and advantages of Node.js. Many renowned corporate companies across the globe make use of Node.js. 

Let us now discuss why they are using Node.js for.

1)   Creating Chat rooms

Whenever it comes to developing some real-time applications like chat rooms, Node.js shines brightly. Although many people these days use phone applications and social media for communication, the chat rooms are still means of correspondence between the users and the brands. 

These features help in experiencing better use of applications like online games. The other things that contribute to better the experience of using forms are Big Data and Machine Learning. 

You must be thinking why Node.js is useful in creating chat rooms? This is because Node.js is excellent for developing high-traffic, data-intensive, and light-weight applications that are ideal for creating the chat rooms as they the incarnation of all these features.

2)   Collecting Large Data

The software can be used whenever you gather significant amounts of information. Since the extraction of the database is a blocked function, receiving large amounts of data can result in a hold-up. 

With Node.js, you can also gather this information and relay it to the back-end progressively. Hence, avoiding any system jams whenever storing the data becomes more effortless.

3)   Audio and Video streaming

All the files that are uploaded to the streaming sites like Veyo and YouTube must be processed before they are heard or viewed by people. This typical process of audio and video uploads saves lots of time and also makes the uploads accessible faster. 

Node.js is used beyond all these purposes. The back-end application, REST API tools and utilities, messaging middleware, blogs, social apps, HTML5 multiplayer game servers, among the other applications that are not CPU intensive, can be written in Node.js.

Here, we will learn how Node.js helps you in making a blog. This is a sequential process that you can follow for developing light-weight blogs with Node.js faster. 

Here, the commands and tools used in the development are associated with Mac. The express version would be 4.16.4. While the development process, if you hit a deadlock, then you can always Google for finding the perfect solutions. 

So, let us start with a procedure to create a light-weight blog with Node.js. 

How to Build a Simple Engaging blog using Node.js?

The first and foremost step is downloading Node.js on your machines and later install it. After the installation, you need to select the location where you will be saving your project. Then, open a new folder for the blog and create an app.js file in it. 

Make use of a node package manager for initializing the project. This step would allow you to manage the dependencies used in the project way more effectively with the help of package.js on. Hence remember to provide the application app.js whenever asked about the entry point.

Start Building

Then use Express for setting up your web server fast. Hence, firstly, write, and then run the Express installation code. This particular express code is necessary for saving dependency locally so that you can use it in your application. Next, you need to write the code in app.js.

Provide a New Route for Serving Your Page

Next step is writing code to add a new route to the server page. After hitting the way, the index page must be rendered. Let us backtrack here for creating the index view to make sure to run the relevant code. 

Then write a simple HTML file in the index.html. You should provide more dynamic features and add a form that will post to your web application.

Restarting Your Application

You need to restart the application and go to the specific port in order to check your progress thus far. You will then realize that you should store your posts from within the form as it would be posting everything to “add post”. Hence you should create a route for the same and the schema which would store all that information.

Installation of MongoDB

For the database connection, you can use MongoDB. Hence, install MongoDB on your machine and then create a data folder which stores all your database system. Then, give specific folder appropriate permissions by running the relevant code. After running the MongoDB terminal, you are set to go. 

For launching a Mongo, you need to open a new window and then run it. After that, provide proper code in the terminal for enabling mongoose for handling all the connections in the mongo database. 

Always be sure to provide the body parse for enabling the application to parse the post data bit. Hence, in your terminal and web application, you need to run the codes for the installation of the body-parser.

Setting up the Schema

For setting up the schema and its model, create a mongoose schema. The next step is to add all the relevant parameter definitions. After doing that, you need to assign a mongoose model to it by providing the necessary codes.

Adding the “add post” Route

Provide an “add post” route that would be storage for all the information. Also, redirect to your particular path after finishing this and add an error whenever required. You need to take hold of the information before sending the same to view in the root route. 

Next, provide a correct code in the index.html for displaying all the saved posts. Always keep Mongo running before you run node app.js. Then gauge your progress by looking at your hosting port.

Now, let us get down to the significant benefits of using Node.js as a programming language.

Advantages of Node.js

1) Node.js is scalable

The critical benefit of Node.js is the developers find it easier to scale the applications in horizontal and vertical directions. All the forms can be mounted in a parallel manner by adding nodes to the existing system.

Node.js also offers the option of adding extra resources to single nodes during the vertical scaling of the application. Hence it is highly scalable and also provides a better choice than the other JavaScript servers. 

2) Easier to Learn

As JavaScript is a popular programming language, many front-end developers have a good grasp of it. It becomes more comfortable to use Node.js at the back-end as learning Node.js consumes less time.

3) Node.js can be used as a single programming language

Node.js offer developers a luxury to write server-side applications in JavaScript. It allows the Node.js developers to write both front-end and back-end web applications in JavaScript via a runtime environment. They do not need to use any other server-side programming language that makes the deployment of the web application much more straightforward as all the web browsers support JavaScript.

Final Word

Here, we have defined Node.js, the various uses of this software, and the step by step process is highlighted by creating a light-weight blog with the help of Node.js. Welcome to real-time application building! To know more about us, visit us today at GoodWorkLabs and learn more about us. 

For software architects, microservices are the wave of the future. Sounds convincing? To learn more about the advantages of microservices architecture, check out the top 10 reasons.

Also, make sure that you know about all the barriers in terms of technical complexity, stack, and more moving to the microservices architecture.

Java is a language that has been around for some time, and people wonder if it is useful in a microservices setting. This article explains the advantages of microservices architecture and why Java still has a lot of significance in contemporary apps such as microservices.

The Need for writing the microservice applications in Java

For excellent reasons, Java is a common linguistic option. The language is strong, with years of experience working with critical apps for missions and evolving with the emergence of fresh planning models. The near-omnipresent use of Java in company apps has developed an extensive pool of Java-based software developers. Even when fresh apps are created, it is useful to use current abilities.

The intensive learning curves are provided by microservices with the addition of a language to the mix which may increase the danger. It presents yet more unidentified information about the creation, deployment, and administration of a manufacturing microservice implementation.

To revolutionize your organization, it’s always positive to keep an eye on the upcoming technologies, frameworks, languages. If in your monolithic framework you are still cemented in your cube messing around with code, then you probably live in the past, where you have a small application and some employees to handle it.

JavaScript is usually used for the application front end (particularly for web-based applications). Java for battle-tested data management is also common in the background. While there is still a lot of space for spectral variations, Java is great for writing micro-services.

Nowadays, things have been changing. You have to go a step forward and walk with the revolutionary technologies where microservices are among the leaders. Are you looking for the best reasons to invest time in learning microservices with a view to becoming an architect and developing applications using them?

This article will help you in learning various advantages of microservices architecture and various reasons so as to why learn microservices.

• Various Tools can be used flexibly as and when required

The architecture of microservices encourages the use of the most suitable technology for the service’s specific needs. Each service is free to use its own language, framework or auxiliary services. The services still communicate easily with the other services in the application even with the use of such diverse frameworks.

• High-Quality code is provided

The entire framework is modularized into discrete components following the microservices architecture. This helps the application development team concentrate on one specific job at a time. In turn, this simplifies the overall process of coding and testing.

• Various Applications can be easily Built and Maintained

The team of developers divides into the following activities as and when the products built by developers become stable and are available for customers.

• Implementing various new features
• Bug fixing
• Modifications in the existing features

If the product is based on a monolithic framework, each change to the codebase must pass through all stages of construction, maintenance, and deployment. Microservices are a savior in these situations!

• The Technology Stack

The technology stack is difficult enough to decide for a monolithic application, but for every microservice, this decision must now be taken. What seems theoretically attractive can become difficult in practice if your services are too heterogeneous. Standardization is becoming a problem and cowboy behavior is possible. It’s also more difficult when every team has a totally different stack for people to move between teams.

It is always recommended to have a balanced approach where the application has a preferred technology stack. If any team wishes to override this default stack, it should justify the fact that it is better suited for microservice with advantages and disadvantages. Your stack of technologies should include the language of programming, test, and logging, cloud providers, facilities, storage, monitoring, etc.

• Improvements in the Scalability

The main aspect of microservices is scalability. Since each service is a separate part, a single function or service can be expanded without the application being scale-up in full. Business services for increased availability and performance on multiple servers can be used without affecting the efficiency of other services.

• Faster Market Time

Due to the fact queuing up of microservices, you don’t need to rewrite all the codebase for a feature to be included or modified. Only a specific service will be changed. You can quickly market your application and services by the development of applications in smaller increments that can be independently tested and deployed.

• The Complex Operations

The complexity of operations is much increased by microservices as operations must be revised from a fundamental point of view. The following aspects must be considered:

Infrastructure

The definition of microservice infrastructure requirements and subsequently the provision and maintenance of infra for each microservice creates a level of complexity which most monolithic Ops engineers are not used to. Furthermore, as these services are expanded and reduced, the infrastructure must be automatically provided and reduced, thus requiring a very advanced level of automation.

Load balancing and scaling

It is likely you will need a much more complex, scaling strategy than with monolithic, ever-scale(x-axis) applications. If you need to scale all the services or just a subset when there’s a high demand, you’ll need to figure out with Microservices. The y-axis scaling is essential for the operations team, as the microservices approach and z-Axis scaling are consistent to obtain x and y.

Service detection

Dynamically, due to scaling and upgrades, the set of service instances of a world with microservices. Services also have dynamic network locations, so you need a way to discover new services. For this, it is always recommended to go for a registry service such as Consul because it works very well.

Monitoring

This must be configured and maintained on every microservice to make the operations team engineers more complex. In addition, the surveillance solution must manage situations for increasing and downloading a subset of facilities.

• Delivery is Continuous

In contrast to monolithic apps where devoted teams operate for each individual function like database manipulation, server logic retention, microservices utilizes the continuous delivery model to manage the entire application lifecycle.

The developers, the test teams and the operations team work together on the construction, testing and debugging of a single service.

• Risk Reducer

Every service in the microservices framework is a distinct entity, which enables localization, increased confidence in quality, and end-to-end regression scenarios. Even if one service or application element is down, the entire application will not decrease. Rather, the designers only need to rebuild that specific service or element. This decreases the danger of your company application being completely dropped!!

• Delivery is Continuous

In contrast to monolithic applications in which dedicated teams are working on discreet functions such as UI, database, server logic and technology, microservices employ cross-functional teams to operate on a continuous delivery model for the entire life cycle of an application. Testing and deployment become simple and instantaneous when developers, activities and test teams operate on one service concurrently. Code is constantly being created, tested and implemented through this strategy of incremental development, and instead of reinventing the wheel; you can use code from current libraries.

Conclusion

As you can see, Java is greatly suited for microservices because of many reasons along with the advantages of microservices architecture. For more information and some good practice tips, check out our official website of Goodwork Labs  and learn more about us.

So, what you are waiting for, contact us today.

The concept of data visualization plays a very essential role when it comes to assisting the users in question to comprehend the critical ideas quite easily. For instance, identifying the data patterns and trends quickly, and getting the maximum output from the presented data as well.

As a matter of fact, with the increase of data escalation in terms of generating data, finding a way to extract, processing and visualize those data to enhance data interpretation is growing rapidly. In addition to that, if interactive capabilities and data visualization are combined together then it will be easy for the users to dive into the finest details of graphs, charts, maps, dashboard, etc, and helps them to preserve the important data analyses and insights.

On the contrary, with the help of JavaScript programming, the developers can come up with interactive and attractive charts quite easily, directly from the chart libraries. No matter what, be it the requirement for an open source library, a paid-for, or any other types. You can surely find the required one to uplift your visualization skills. There are a number of charting libraries, that includes, Google chart, AnyChart, D3, and Highcharts are the one that worth mentioning. The creating process for all of these is in most of the cases quite similar. Hence, mastering one of then give you the privilege to use the other libraries. Certainly, when you want to add any specific characteristics for any of them.

For the purpose of JavaScript tutorial, let us take the examples from the AnyChart library. This is easy to use and quite flexible as well. It has exhaustive documentation, a wide range of supported chart types verity, and also a code playground, that allows you to test the codes, etc.

Therefore, let’s get into the process of how AnyChart helps in meeting the need for data visualization.

Here we would be addressing the three easy steps that can be used to create a basic bar chart in JavaScript. You can later integrate the same into your website or even in application. These are:
– Data Preparation
– Go to the JavaScript charts library
– Create or enter codes

Now, let’s talk about each one of them in detail.

Data Preparation

In case the data type is unstructured, then you need to prepare the same for the purpose of easy loading into the chart library. According to the format of the library you choose, you need to process the data in the format that the library accepts. However, AnyCharts supports a verity of formats for data including the other ones mentioned above.

For almost all of the charts you create, all you need to do, just put the values for both X and Y axes. Again, for the purpose of making Bar Charts, you will be required to put the values for Y-axis followed by an index number or any item number. This number will be considered as the value for the X-axis.

For instance, let us consider the data in array format, then X will be the item number and data values will be Y axis.

Again, when the data is on JSON format, it will look like this.

Connect the Chart Library

In order to create a connection to the preferred JavaScript chart library, you need to download the relevant package and install the same locally. You can also use the CDN service. In most of the cases, CDN service is the most preferred one. As it will give you the privilege to load data from server Library’s files to the users directly. That in turn as well increase the page load time and enhance the experiences.

Furthermore, AnyChart has a module-based system which allows you to connect to the specific chart type and the features that are essential for your project. It will also help you shrink the code sizes that are running on the application.

Such as, when creating a bar chart using the AnyChart JavaScript, you will be required to add below-mentioned core and basic Cartesian modules.

Writing the Codes

To create a JavaScript Bar Chart, you need to follow the steps mentioned below

To start with let us start with creating a container on the HTML page, it will refer the bar chart.
Then put all the previously processed data on the above-mentioned step.
Let’s create the type of charts that we are going to create from the applicable chart constructor function.
Create a title for the chart and axes
Now at this point create a bar series and put the data
Point the chart to the container the created earlier and start outlining the bar chart
Hence, you can easily understand that creating a bar chart using AnyChart is pretty much straight forward and simple.

Now let’s concentrate on the factors to enhance the looks and feel of the chart, by using some advanced level steps.

Create Advanced JavaScript Bar Charts

From the above discussion, the process of making the bar chart using AnyChart is clear. Thus, dive into other possibilities, when we have to perform a bit complex data visualization job to do. Of course, JavaScript chat creating is not at all complicated for smart web developers.

Lets, go to the advanced method that you can use from the same library.

Create Multi-Series Bar Chart

Besides the single series bar chart, AnyChart JS will allow you to create a multi-series bar chart, that enables to show the multiple sets of data on charts plot. Series referred to the single data set in AnyChat that will also display in chart’s plot. Now with the help of multiple series chart, it is easy to visualize the detailed information with the insights to the audience.

To build a Multi serious bar chart using AnyChart, it is essential to add data adopter module. It will help you load the HTML data in the work environment.

Parse data from the HTML table

Now create the data and specify the data source

Add a legend if you want your audience to understand and read the meaning of the values

Upon running the codes, it will create the multi-series bar chart displaying the composition of the values and understanding of the data as well.

Stacked Bar Chart

It is quite easy, without making any huge changes to the multi-series bar chart you can create a stacked bar chart. There are two ways, value stacking, and percent stacking. You can choose any one by setting the scale of the stack mode method to the “value” and “percent”.

Heres how to set:

This is how to set the mode back to the 100% stacked bar chart

Set Interactivity to Charts

All the charts prepared by using AnyChart are interactive by default. Some of the default chart behaviors are highlighting and points when hovered over, directing to hovered tooltips point, etc. In addition, you can tailor the chart’s interactivity to match the specified requirements.

Final Thoughts

Considering all the point it is clear that, creating the interactive JavaScript (HTML5) charts is quite easy with the appropriate JS library. So, here in this guide, we have just touched the surface. You can also visit the AnyChart’s documents and learn other factors.

For any queries, or specific instructions do let us know in the comment section below.