Frontend Architecture for a web application [closed] - spring

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Closed 10 years ago.
I have to write a new web application and currently am in the process of deciding on the architecture , there are several things i know i want to be able to do :
All machine must be symmetric , i.e. : commodity machines no custom build servers (aws)
I want a ReST API that is seperated from the UI as i allready have three clients for the API : mobile applications , the web site and a server from a 3rd company waiting for the product to be build
it needs to able to scale horizontal (a but of a repeat of 1)
Easy to maintain : no time to learn new languages , more available candidates but willing to adopt new technologies
here is the basic architecture i've come up with :
frontend combining of nginx+nodejs+expressjs+YUI ,
api : nginx+tomcat+spring framework stack (rest+Security+core+aop)
the frontend will talk to the api with oAuth 2.0
nothing exciting about the api i've done it before , i know it works and works well would have loved to put some scala flavour but i don't have the time .
my main concern is the frontend : nodejs is insanely exciting and i've been playing around for some time also love the fact it's in JS , but i'm afraid about navigation+templating+sessions (for authentication only : stateless,stateless,stateless)+logging+debugging of it , if it works it works well but it's not a mature enviourment to develop in .....
anyone here developed a full frontend with stack or subsets of it ? any other suggestions to choose from ?
thanks guys .

Answer 1

but i'm afraid about navigation+templating+sessions (for
authentication only : stateless,stateless,stateless)+logging+debugging
of it
navigation? Not sure what you mean here. Use hyperlinks. AFAIK there's nothing in node like Rails' form_for() type helpers, but those were never that interesting to me. If you want something like Rails style before/after filters, say for requiring a logged in user, connect does this great.
app.all('/app/*', requireUser)
That will call requireUser for any path starting with /app. Inside requireUser you can make sure req.session.user is there (and maybe has proper authorization). If so, you call next() and the middleware responsible for actually generating the response is executed. If the user isn't logged in or is not authorized, you can generate a 30X redirect response and don't call next(). Done. There's a great example exactly like this in the express.js guide. Search for loadUser. This design is really elegant, IMHO.
templating? Uh, node.js has as good or better templating options than any other platform. Try jade or any of a dozen others. You can use the same templates on the server and in the browser, which is a nice win. Check out this video of Dav Glass using YUI widgets on the server side in node.js since you like YUI.
sessions? Connect sessions. Taste great. Less filling. What's the problem?
logging? Winston works for me. There are also fancier libraries as well I think.
debugging? node-inspector gives node.js (IMHO) the best debugging support available. It debugs with chrome's inspector and is every bit as awesome as debugging client side javascript. I can also debug server side unit tests when running via jasbin.
Here's an answer to what companies are using node.js in production.

Answer 2

So if you got problem with testing then you just misunderstand some features of Node.js and express. For example you can use something like this for testing:
app.get('/route', function(req,res,next) {
require('./controllers.js').method(req,res,next)
});
Then you need to drop cache with all files required in your controlles.js:
if (require.cache[__filename])
{
var del = false;
for ( i in require.cache)
{
if (i == __filename)
{
del = true;
}
if (del)
{
delete require.cache[i];
}
}
}
So now your controller will updated instantly to current version when request pass.
To understand how does nodejs require work just try this:
require.js
module.exports = {};
main.js
var x = require('./require.js');
x.tell = true;
var y = require('./require.js');
y.tell = false;
console.log(require('./require.js'));