Tutorial - Node application with Express

This is a very simple Node application with Express, created following the tutorial by James Hibbard on SitePoint.

Prior to following this tutorial I had never used Pug or Mongoose, so this was an opportunity to learn something new.

The tutorial has been followed to the letter, with the exception of the following:

• The Express server port is configurable via environment variable;
• The list of users registered appears also as a definition list;
• There is a link to view the list of registered users on the collection form;
• There is an additional route that shows the HTTP headers from the request;
• The Bootstrap source is referenced via CDN, not with a local inclusion;

Technology stack

• Node.js (the container)
• Express (the backend)
• MongoDB (the data persistence layer)
• Pug v3.0(the frontend template engine)
• Bootstrap v5.3.0 (the template styling)

Installation steps

1. Clone the repository.
2. Run npm install to install the dependencies.
3. Create a .env file in the project root called PORT and DATABASE to store the port number of the server and the MongoDB connection string, respectively.
4. (optional) If running MongoDB locally, start the server with mongod.https://github.com/jameshibbard/demo-node-app
5. (optional) Modify the username and password in users.htpasswd file.
6. Run npm run watch to start the server and monitor for changes.
7. Visit http://localhost:PORT/ to see the application running.
8. Visit http://localhost:PORT/registrations to see the list of submissions. Note: the /registrations route is wrapped with a basic-auth middleware, so you will need to provide a username and password to access it. Overwrite the value you find in users.htpasswd with your own credentials, or use efabrizio and password as username and password, respectively.

Comments and Take-away

While following the tutorial I found a few useful things:

• I liked the simple tool to generate a hashed passwd file.
• I discovered new ways to create templates with Pug, especially via the HTML-to-Pug Generator.
• I enjoyed learning to use the official MongoDB GUI tool, Compass.

Acknowledgements

Obviously this is totally free to use and distribute as you wish. All credit goes to SitePoint and James Hibbard for the tutorial idea, and the code I used to make this repository.