Read on if you are looking for resources and tutorials to learn Node.js. We would be covering Node.js tutorial for Real Time chat application, writing API services, Polling app creation, Character voting app, Social authentication, Node.js on Raspberry Pi and many more.
Given below is brief introduction of Node.js for beginners, you can skip directly to the Node.js tutorials if you already know the basics of Node.js.
What is Node.js ?
Node.js is the most used server side JavaScript runtime environment till date and is used for developing cross platform real time web applications in JavaScript.
Node.js is powered by the open source V8 JavaScript engine of Google and works on an event driven, non-blocking input-output model which makes it efficient and lightweight.
The power of node.js lies in its ability to support data intensive interactive applications that function around user events and deal with data I/O and data streaming. Node.js also works magical when it comes to JSON APIs and is the heart and soul of single page web applications.
The popularity of Node.js can be gauged from the fact that big brands like eBay, target, City Group, Sony, Uber, LinkedIn, Medium, and Netflix too have used Nodejs for one or the other web development project.
How to Learn Node.js ?
Developers across the globe use Node.js for developing complex interactive and data intensive web apps and websites. There is no dearth of great resources and tutorials that teach you how to build your own Node.js applications.
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Let us look at the best Tutorials around the web written by Node.js experts for creating kick-ass web apps. If you are looking for a proper course to master everything server side with Node.js, then here is the course that you should not miss – Server-side Development with NodeJS.
We will cover introductory Node.js tutorials for beginners, intermediate level Node.js tutorials and also the tutorials that teach how to build complex Node.js applications.
For the absolute node.js beginners, it is good to go through the step by step guides like the one on Udemy, or the Node.js tutorial on airpair.com before diving deep into fully functional example projects that are covered later in this article. Nodeschool.io is another great website with tons of resources to learn basics of node.js and related technologies.
Real Time Chat App with Node.js, Express and Socket.io
The best way to learn the depths of any new technology is by creating a fully functional application. In this tutorial you will learn to build a real time chat application using Node.js Express framework and socket.io that enables event based bidirectional communication. In this tutorial, you will also get to work with JavaScript template engine named Jade.
Tutorial is written by Krasimir Tsonev on tutsplus.com and covers all aspects of end to end app building, starting with node.js environment setup, backend server development using Express framework, and finally the front end UI development using Jade template engine.
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You can follow this tutorial here at: Node.js Tutorial – Real Time Chat.
Restful API in Node.js Using Swagger
This is another well written tutorial for learning node.js that explains how to write rest API services using Swagger and covers the end to end CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) cycle. This tutorial is written by Samuela Zara on scotch.io and provides step by step instructions to create Restful API to manage movies collection.
If you haven’t heard of Swagger, it is the most powerful framework that enforces specifications when it comes to documenting REST APIs. It offers interactive documentation, client side sdk generation and discoverability so that your APIs are easily discovered, described and used by developers.
In this tutorial Samuela starts of with setting up Swagger module for Node.js, then uses the mock mode feature, which helps you start off with the APIs setup without writing single line of code. Once the structure is in place then you implement APIs for Get movie, Update movie, Add movie and Delete movie.
You can find this tutorial here at – Restful API in Node.js using Swagger.
API Services in Node.js Using Nodal
With tons of modules and Nodejs frameworks around, you would never need to build any project from scratch in plain JavaScript/Node.js. For multi-platform (mobile, web, IOT) product development, service oriented architecture is the key and this tutorial takes you a step closer to that.
In this tutorial, Keith Horwood utilizes Nodal framework to create API services in Node.js and makes it look damn easy. Nodal is an extensible full service opinionated framework that helps speed up data centric APIs creation in Node.js.
In this tutorial you will setup node.js environment, install Nodal, setup postgreSQL before getting into coding the Model, Controller and Views.
You can find this tutorial here at: API Services in Node.js Using Nodal.
Node.js Apps – Social Authentication with Passport
Social authentication is used almost everywhere since most of the people have accounts in one or the other social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Google. Authentication using social networking works like single sign on where you use your existing social network credentials and login to other applications.
In this tutorial you build a simple Node.js application and use social authentication for login using Passport as middleware. This tutorial is written by Agraj Mangal on tutsplus.com.
You can follow this link for the tutorial – Node.js Apps – Social Authentication with Passport.
Polling App using Rethink DB and Node.js
This tutorial is mostly for beginners who have basic understanding of Node.js. In this tutorial you learn Node.js by building a simple polling app that gives users three choices to vote and provides live updates of the vote count.
Angular and angural material design library is used for front end design of the application, Node.js is used as the server and rethinkDB is used to store voting and user related data.
You end up building a simple application while covering all aspects of end to end app creation.
You can find this tutorial here at – Polling App using Rethink DB and Node.js.
Character Voting App – Node.js, React, MongoDB and Socket.io
This one is a must read tutorial for advanced level programming and definitely not among the easiest node.js examples for beginners to learn. It is a well-organised tutorial written by Sahat Yalkabov and is nothing less than a fully functional project for building a character voting app for online multiplayer game – Eve Online. Eve online is multiplayer online game where each player is represented by a 3D avatar.
Tutorial covers building REST API using Node.js Express framework, saving and retrieving data from MongoDB, real time online visitors tracking using Socket.io, server side rendering with React ( and Flux) and finally deploying the application in the cloud. In this tutorial, you end up building an app for ranking avatars for Eve online and learn about multiple technologies in an interesting and fun way.
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You can find this tutorial here at – Character Voting App – Node.js, React, MongoDB and Socket.io
WI-FI Dashboard Using Node.js and Reactive.js
This tutorial is written by Marcello La Rocca on Sitepoint.com and is for intermediate level Node.js programming. Marcello takes lead from the previous tutorial in the series and moves ahead with building a dashboard and adding more information about the available Wi-Fi connections around.
In this tutorial, you implement a server that runs on Ubuntu, a minor modification and it can run on windows and mac too. The server implementation is extended from the previous tutorial of Marcello – Creating Battery viz using Node.js. After implementing server, you write client, and the user interface to present Wi-Fi list using HTML template.
You can find this tutorial here at – WI-FI Dashboard Using Node.js and Reactive.js.
Test Driven Development – Node.js and Mocha
This tutorial is brought to you by Semaphoreci.com, in this tutorial you learn how to use Mocha library for unit and integration testing.
Mocha is JavaScript test framework that runs in browser and on Nodejs and helps in asynchronous testing. Mocha tests are serial in nature and map uncaught exceptions to the right test cases.
You setup empty project with node package manager npm and then install mocha library. The node.js example app in this tutorial is a color converter that translates RGB to hexadecimal color representation. Finally web server is created to test workings of asynchronous code.
You can find this tutorial here at – Test Driven Development – Node.js and Mocha.
Node.js on Raspberry Pi
This Node.js tutorial is part of the learning through making series written by Dave Johnson on thisdavej.com. In this tutorial you will learn to install Node.js on Raspberry Pi2 and Pi3. This tutorial mostly focuses on Raspberry Pi setup with node.js installation in towards the end.
After going through this tutorial, you can follow further tutorials in this series to get going with Node.js on Raspberry Pi, tutorials include “exposing Raspberry Pi web server on the internet using node.js” and “creating web server with node without coding”.
You can find this and other related tutorials here at – Node.js on Raspberry Pi.
Node.js Tutorial: Building Sentiment Analysis App
Here is another great tutorial written by Scott Rich on IBM developerWorks. This tutorial uses Node.js, Express framework, Sentiment module and ntwitter module to build a small application to do sentiment analysis based on tweets.
In this tutorial, you setup Express framework, run and test Hello Node.js app to ensure everything works, add sentiment analysis to the application, connect application to twitter, and finally get everything together for a fully functional application.
You can find this tutorial here at – Twitter Sentiment Analysis App in Node.js.
Conclusion
Node.js is a magical and it promises development of real time interactive applications and Restful APIs with ease. There are many Node.js tutorials around the web, free as well as paid. Of course, you can spend time searching for tutorials, read through and ultimately learn to build killer apps and APIs with Node.js.However, as they say, time is money. This article is an attempt to save you time by providing tutorials offering node.js examples.
Better to save on time by relying on right set of Node.js tutorials from day one. Marcello, Sahat Yalkabov, Keith Horwood and other authors mentioned in this article are experts in the field and have written reliable Node.js tutorials with examples. Go for these and get on-boarded with greatness of NodeJS.
When you are ready to use Node JS not only for your personal projects, but in a company and as a career building tool, check top Node JS interview questions to pass job interview successfully
Recommended Course – The Complete Node.js Developer Course – 2nd Edition.
Further Reading
