Overcoming Node.js Development Challenges: Expert Tricks For Faster Development

Why was the JavaScript developer sad?

Because he didn’t Node how to Express himself…

Not funny?

Oh, well then, maybe after seeing these statistics, you will find the joke funnier:

Netflix and PayPal reduced their startup time from 40+ minutes to under a minute with Node JS. (Source: Hackernoon)

That is a huge improvement!

Here’s another:

Node JS is pretty darn fast. Tons of studies show that it can increase your application performance by 50%.

No wonder Node.js is the leading choice for start-ups and enterprises.

Before creating your first Node.js application, it’s worth evaluating your requirements and choosing your tech stack wisely.

1. Start by selecting your server framework from over 30 libraries to choose from.
   Not sure how to make the best choice on Node.js server framework? Go with Express and learn it thoroughly.
2. Next, find out whether you’re building a single page app (SPA) or a non-SPA. Facebook is a classic example of an SPA, and Twitter, of a non-SPA.
   SPAs are much easier to grasp for coders who’ve just begun working with Node.js framework.
3. Similar to selecting a server framework, pick a template engine for your app.
   Can’t decide on one? Go with Nunjucks and learn the engine to its fullest.
4. Some Node.js server frameworks (example: Express) will have in-built routers you can use, while others will require you to select one for your app based on your preference.
5. The last big decision you must make is to select your database language. Relational databases or non-relational databases are the two choices you have in this aspect.
6. Once you’ve chosen your stack, it’s a good idea to set up your development environment.
   For this, consider selecting a package manager and a build tool, and refreshing your server and browser automatically.

Expert tricks to overcome Node.js development challenges:

Magnifying the positive aspects can blur out the negative details, which isn’t nice.

Looking on the bright side all the time won’t help fix the negatives.

Let us look a bit into the challenges that developers face while using Node.js so we can find ways to overcome them:

1. Challenge: Difficult to understand and maintain code

The lousy and unstructured nature of this technology is one of its biggest drawbacks which makes your code difficult to understand and update. This is because there are no certain modules and types.

Overcoming the challenge:

This drawback could be easily removed due to the class decorators and OOP principles present. Ensure to introduce yourself to the Node JS structure of doing things. Write clean, ordered, and documented code.

2. Challenge: Carrying out linear I/O programming operations

Due to the Asynchronous programming model that Node.js follows, it becomes a challenge for developers to carry out linear Input/Output programming operations.

3. Challenge: It lacks a proper, stable API

Another big challenge of using this technology is that it lacks a proper stable API, meaning that it keeps changing on a regular basis, resulting in a lack of consistency.

Overcoming the challenge:

When API changes, make changes to the existing codebase and make it compatible with the latest version of the Node.js API.

4. Challenge: Node.js is not recommended for heavy computation

The inability of Node.js to process CPU bound tasks is another huge drawback of the platform. When Node.js receives a CPU bound task and a heavy request comes to the event loop, it sets all the CPU available to process it first, before it answers other queued requests. This leads to an overall delay in the event loop, and therefore to an inefficient computation process.

Overcoming the challenge: Leveraging the experimental feature of Multithreading

Ever since multithreading got introduced in Node.js framework in 2018 as an experimental feature, it allowed to process heavy CPU-bound tasks by leveraging the new feature called “worker threads module”, although there were limitations on the kind of machines it allowed you to use the feature on. Machines with multiple cores can use the feature to leverage additional threads from a thread pool.

5. Challenge: It impacts the quality of code due to the callback hell issue

Callbacks are the functions that run after each task in the queue is finished. The callback hell issue is a situation where callbacks are nested within other callbacks several levels deep, meaning you have lots of callback functions in your code. This makes it difficult for developers to work with the code or even understand or maintain it.

Overcoming the challenge: Following the best coding standards and practices

Since the issue occurs due to poor coding standards and lack of experience with JavaScript and Node.js frameworks in particular, good news is that it’s not difficult to fix. Ensure to keep your code shallow and modularized to keep it readable. Handle every single error (always reserve the first argument for the error) to make the code stable. Using typescript-based frameworks such as SugoiJS which you can use on top of Node JS is a good way to eliminate this drawback and make the codes simpler and more effective.

Jellyfish Technologies is a reputed global software development company that specializes in Node.js development services and can, in fact, accelerate your NodeJS development efficiently.

Node.js: Trends & Use Cases in The World of Web Development

A decade has gone by since the development of Node.js framework, an open-source platform built on Chrome’s JavaScript runtime for building network applications. It is a JavaScript runtime, a way to use JavaScript like you can PHP on the server-side.

Before its development, web applications were written in a client/server model where the client would request resources from the server and the server would respond with the resources, after which the server would close the connection.

Responding to millions of requests coming in at the same time proved to be a challenge for servers.

As a result, requests to servers would be delayed till all other requests were responded to, which wasn’t nice.

This is where Threads came into the picture and allowed a way to run thousands or at least hundreds of requests at once. This multi-threaded system proved to be efficient for CPU intensive applications.

But, it had a downside.

In scenarios where there were lots of requests, starting up new threads consumed a whole lot of memory and system resources. The more the threads, the more the cost. Multiple threaded systems proved to be a costly affair!

This is where Node.js jumped into the picture.

Simply put, instead of requiring a new thread or process for every single request, it delegates all requests to other system workers that allow everything to happen parallel except your code.

Today, multiple companies across the globe rely on the Node.js framework to build various applications. Netflix is unarguably one of the biggest examples of a high-profile company that uses the Node.js platform.

Some of the other biggies in the industry that leverage Node.js to build their primary applications include LinkedIn, Trello, Walmart, Uber, eBay, PayPal, and NASA. Other industry giants such as Google, Amazon, GitHub, and Mozilla have also embraced the technology as part of their operations.

Node.js Development

Trends and popular use cases of Node.js

• Event-based, real-time applications
  Event-based, real-time applications that have non-blocking I/O, such as gaming apps, chat apps, video conference apps, and others require constantly updated data. Due to the asynchronous, non-blocking, single-threaded nature of Node.js framework, synchronization happens fast, which makes it the most suitable choice of technology for these apps. PayPal is a leading example that switched to Node.js from Java and noticed a significant decrease in response time.
• Microservices solutions
  The lightweight mechanism of Node.js makes it a great choice for developing microservices solutions. The technology makes it easier to lay the groundwork for further growth. It does so by allowing to break the application logic into smaller modules. It further allows to add more microservices on top of the existing ones. As a result, the Node.js framework promises better performance and speed of application.
• Modern applications
  The Node.js framework is quite rich with a countless number of libraries available in the NPM registry and new ones being published constantly. Stats indicate that 97 % of modern web applications consist of NPM modules. With such a vast variety of free tools the technology offers, it is an indisputable choice for building modern web applications.
• System dashboards
  Node.js can be leveraged to collect detailed real-time data about website traffic, especially website visitors. If your business model relies on user statistics and insights, you can use the technology to make system dashboards.
• Applications that process data from IoT and SPAs
  Since the Node.js framework implements microservices and real-time capabilities, companies prefer developing IoT apps using the platform. It is an appropriate choice of technology for applications that process data from IoT devices (Internet of Things) and Single Page Applications (SPAs) which are very common now.
• There are specific cases where Node.js performs the best.
• Server-side web applications are the most appropriate use case where the technology proves to be no less than a match made in heaven.
• If you’re looking to create web applications on the server-side, Node.js promises the best environment to pick for server-side web applications, provided you’re not trying to perform relational operations or CPU intensive computation.

The bottom line

Node.js, the server-side platform, has become a stand-alone name in the industry. Its open and welcoming community of code packages follows the sharing-is-caring approach, which makes the work of developers a lot simpler.

Although it is not perfect, it keeps evolving and that is what makes it a popular choice among coders in today’s diverse and dynamic world of web development.