Why Loopback rocks?

This is the talk I gave on Nov. 19, 2014 at Taipei Javascript Enthusiasts (http://goo.gl/KSz7Ic), which covers the main benefits of using loopback for node.js-based API development.

Transcript

1. Why Loopback Rocks?
2. Jeremy Lu @thecat | jeremy@pubulous.com Founder and builder, Lovelyreader | Pubulous | Visualmarks | Docknote
3. Developer
 10+ years hands-on experience" !
4. Consulting" Social Media" Finance" Real Estate" Digital Publishing"
5. Founder" Lovelyreader" Pubulous" Visualmarks" Docknote"
6. ! FullstackRocks.com LATEST
7. What is Loopback? - An open source project from StrongLoop" - Main contributor behind Node.js, Express and others" - A Node.js framework for creating APIs real quick" - With robust and well-thought out features built-in
8. It’s good for? - API service and gateway" - Mobile backend and hybrid apps" - Web (sites and SPAs)" - Anything real-time
9. What’s in the box? - A development framework" - A bunch of DevOP toolsets" - and a lot of wisdom packed in
10. The Framework
11. Create API endpoints quickly - Create schema in JSON and translate it to Model automagically" - Each model comes in with 10+ CRUD methods" - Methods become end points instantly
12. {" "name": "user"," "base": "PersistedModel"," "trackChanges": true," "properties": {" "id": {" "id": true," "type": "string"" }," "title": "string"," "completed": {" "type": "boolean"," "default": false" }," "created": {" "type": "number""
13. Highly customizable domain Models - before/after hook for implementing business logics" - Create new remote methods for end points easily
14. ORM - Mongodb, MySql, Postgres, MSSQL, Oracle" ! - and a bunch of other DataSources" ! - Forked from JugglingDb" ! - Easy to use APIs and very efficient" ! - Highly customizable" " " " - Support all kinds of relationships: hasMany, belongsTo...
15. Cloud Storages - Uploading files to S3" - Amazon, Openstack, Rackspace, Azure" - Just like a normal dataSource which provides create/read/update/delete commands"
16. Built-in API Explorer - Test APIs on the fly" - Adjustable parameters" * http://goo.gl/nmj0u0
18. Authentication - Built-in User model provides register, login, logout, forgot password and reset" - Complete ACL rules setting
19. Role-based access control - Who has right to access what?" - Support dynamic $role definition too
20. oAuth2 - Using Passport" - facebook/google/twitter/github " - and 100+ providers" * http://goo.gl/bmHMxO
21. Sync - Stores data offline" - App continues to work offline" - Sync data when online" - Conflict resolution and 3-way merging" - Supports socket.io for real-time syncing" * http://goo.gl/plVBhr
22. Studio API Composer - Editing models and datasources" - Generate models from db schemas" - Generate db schemas from models" * http://goo.gl/jODKSJ
24. Push Notification - Support iOS and Android" * http://goo.gl/9zRZZ6
25. Web Socket - Coming feature" - Real time notification when model changes
26. Native SDK for iOS/Android/Angular * http://goo.gl/OW2TBf
27. Leverage Express - Continue to use all middlewares" - Reuse your existing skills" - Build hybrid website and API end points in one" - Could use Reactjs as server-side templating engine (via express)
28. DevOP Tools
29. In the box - Debugger" - Build/Package" - Deploy" - Logging" - Monitoring" - Clustering
30. Debugger - slc debug" " - Using node-inspector
32. Build/Package - A standard way of packaging and building your apps" * http://goo.gl/5ghCIv
33. Deploy - StrongLoop Process Manager (slc-pm)" - Works tightly with build/deploy tools" - Provides zero-downtime application updates" " " * http://goo.gl/aUeTp3" - Deployment best practices" * http://goo.gl/O1MDha
34. Logging - Log to file, syslog, remote log, Splunk" - Using Winston or Bunyan" * http://goo.gl/aPlim9
35. Clustering - Fully utilize all cores on the server" - View cluster status anytime" - Resizing clusters at runtime" * http://goo.gl/lF3ZKg
36. Monitoring - Collecting metrics" - Diagnose memory leaks" - Profile CPU consumption" - With web UI" - On-premises or hosted" * http://goo.gl/7F3miH
37. Other Benefits
38. No Vendor Lock-in - Everything is open sourced" - Host on your own server
39. Paid commerical support - When shit hits the fan, you know whom to ask help for" * http://goo.gl/ldeCDF
40. Active response and community - google groups" * http://goo.gl/FEqhTL)" - github issues" * http://goo.gl/dXAUcM)
41. The Bad
42. - Still evolving very fast hence incomplete documentation and changing examples" - Took one month to get my ahead around it initially " - With professional guidance it shall take just 1 week to pick up
43. When to use what?
44. For quick and simple tasks - Koa and misc. middlewares" - You gotta know what you are doing when home brewing the whole stack though
45. For Enterprise-grade API services and platform - Loopback" - Because it’s well thought out and got all ends covered
46. For EC/Forum site - Express or Loopback" - Because it’s battle-tested
47. Do not reinvent the wheels, especially flaky ones!
48. Side Notes
49. Learn from the best - Excellent coding skills for node.js development" - Lot of test cases" - Learn best practices for build/package/deploy/ cluster/monitor node.js apps
50. Stand on the shoulders of giants and get yourself a head start!
51. The Holy Grail - The holy grail of fullstack development" - React + Flux for front-end apps" - Node.js and Loopback for backends" - Isomorphic javascript FTW" - Highly efficiency, shorter time to market, robust quality
52. Loopback is way more than just a framework to help you build the application, it also provides a rich set of tools to help you debug, build, package, deploy, cluster and monitor the app.
53. In short, you are fully covered.
54. Professional training on fullstack development at fullstackrocks.com
55. jeremy@pubulous.com Questions?