

Node.js modules you should know about: read - Altreus
http://www.catonmat.net/blog/nodejs-modules-read/

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krmmalik
I really like the idea of this website, as there might be a module out there
that could just save you so much development time and hassle, instead of
having to craft a solution yourself. Why, re-invent something when someone has
already fixed the problem for you.

The problem that i have however, is that for a beginner in Node.js and in
programming itself for that matter, i just cant benefit or take advantage of a
site like this because , in my opinion it caters for intermediate level and
above.

I dont even know what stdin does yet, let alone what obstacles i might face
when using it.

I had the same problem with NodeTuts as well. I found that a lot of the video
tutorials were better suited to people who already had a foundational
knowledge, but now that i've been learning more about Node, those videos now
make much more sense and are much more useful.

Anyway, this isnt a rant, i just wanted to share in case the feedback is
useful for anyone.

~~~
david_a_r_kemp
To be honest, node.js isn't the kind of place for a complete beginner - it
changes fast and there's a lot of outdated information available (which
doesn't say which version it was meant to work with).

Even as an experienced programmer, I'm still reticent to use node in any real
projects, (mostly because I'd spend half my time updating it to work with the
latest release).

Of course, it can be fun to hack on a fast moving platform, but it can be
annoying too, when you spend your evening trying to get an environment set-up
on an obscure platform rather than writing any useful code.

~~~
krmmalik
I hear what you're saying. I had the same problem when i first tried Node as
well. A friend of mine, started using it for a project and then gave up for
the same reasons you cite above.

How do you feel about Node.js now that we're on version 0.6? I've been
dabbling with it again recently and found it to be maturer and much more
stable. I also heard a quote (i cant remember from who) in a video saying that
Node was now production ready?

I've even been using it on Windows and found it to be very well behaved
indeed. Same goes for MongoDB for that matter.

~~~
IsaacSchlueter
Node has been "production ready" for a while, yes. At least, Voxer, Ebay,
LinkedIn, Joyent, and Microsoft (among others) seem to think so :)

The API is not changing quickly any more. In fact, in most areas (if you're
just dealing with documented features and not diving into obscure internals)
it's as stable as it's going to get.

The most recent breaking change that I'm aware of was announced almost a year
in advance (though it still caused some hardship). We really are trying to
avoid doing that sort of thing if at all possible.

Yes, it's young and there will be bugs, but updates that "break all the nodes"
should be a thing of the past.

~~~
krmmalik
Great to hear. Cant upvote this enough. Thanks for replying and encouraging a
beginner like myself. ;-)

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philjackson
May I start a meta-discussion about asyncronous helpers? Personally I find Seq
_less_ readable than normal cascading functions and even less readable than
the good, old async library. Here's what the example would look like for async
in coffeescript:

    
    
        seq = [ ]
    
        seq.push ( cb ) -> read prompt: 'Username: ', cb
        seq.push ( cb ) -> read prompt: 'Password: ', silent : true, cb
    
        async.series seq, ( err, [ username, password ] ) ->
          console.log "#{username}, '#{password}'."
          process.stdin.destroy()
    

Very readable and very simple.

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Stwerner
I love this. I recently started my first project using node and these blog
posts have been extremely helpful in figuring out the right way to do things,
even if I'm not using the specific modules the posts are about.

I kind of felt that the nesting of functions was really ugly, positive there
was a better way to do it, but unsure of how to even go about finding out.
Can't wait to get home and try out seq now.

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kevinconroy
Node.js modules you should know about: n/a

Unix commands you should know about:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2567186>

