MEAN Cookbook

Key Features

• Architect a fully functional stand-alone web application, including the web server, database, and front-end web application
• Improve the performance and maintainability of your MEAN stack application with tips for configuration and optimization
• Highlights MEAN Stack best practices when working with your application

Book Description

The MEAN Stack is a framework for web application development using JavaScript-based technologies; MongoDB, Express, Angular, and Node.js. If you want to expand your understanding of using JavaScript to produce a fully functional standalone web application, including the web server, user interface, and database, then this book can help guide you through that transition. This book begins by configuring the frontend of the MEAN stack web application using the Angular JavaScript framework. We then implement common user interface enhancements before moving on to configuring the server layer of our MEAN stack web application using Express for our backend APIs. You will learn to configure the database layer of your MEAN stack web application using MongoDB and the Mongoose framework, including modeling relationships between documents. You will explore advanced topics such as optimizing your web application using WebPack as well as the use of automated testing with the Mocha and Chai frameworks. By the end of the book, you should have acquired a level of proficiency that allows you to confidently build a full production-ready and scalable MEAN stack application.

What you will learn

• Bootstrap a new MEAN stack web application using Node.js and Express
• Build a single-page application (SPA) with Angular and Angular-CLI
• Improve browser performance by optimizing your web application resources using Webpack
• Model complex JSON object relationships in MongoDB using Mongoose
• Debug all the layers of a MEAN stack application, including working with source maps
• Build Restful APIs using Express.js and JSON Web Token (JWT) for user authentication
• Use automated testing to improve the reliability and quality of your MEAN stack application

About the Author

Nicholas McClay is a software developer and designer with over a decade of JavaScript experience in both corporate and startup technology companies. He is an avid Node.js and JavaScript enthusiast and the founder of the greater Pittsburgh region’s Node.js and Angular meetups. A self-described user experience developer, he balances using both design and development disciplines to solve problems.

He is a graduate of the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, where he acquired a bachelor's of science degree in Game Art and Design, a passion that springboarded him into a career of interactive experience design.

His previous work experience includes Autodesk, where he worked on next-generation integrated cloud services. His current role is as the UX Lead of Wombat Security Technologies, where he helps bridge the gap between the customers' user experience and the underlying technology and product decisions that deliver it.

He enjoys video games, tinkering and creating things, and lives with his loving wife, son, and daughter in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Table of Contents

1. Working with Angular 4
2. Enhancing your User Interface
3. Working with Data
4. Using Express Web Server
5. REST APIs & Authentication
6. Advanced functionality
7. MongoDB & Mongoose
8. Relationships
9. Resource Pipelines & Optimizations
10. Debugging and Optimization
11. Automated Testing