How do I get started with Node.js

Paired with Node and its modularity Express it really an eye opener Sinatra never was.

To get this paradigm shift and the entire experience with Node, NoSQL and especially Node in combination with Mongo the Native Driver is essential:

Mongoose is great and basically an ORM (or they call it ODM, Object Document Mapper) which forces you for good reasons to do a little more preparations like doing a scheme and so on. Point is that's highly recommended as migrations are with SQL counterparts but the point is for the 90% of the projects you start you do not know:

- Will you ever finish the project?

- Will the project ever be deployed?

- Will you ever get heavy traffic and traction?

Often especially with private side projects you just play around and try. Client projects most of the times never reach web scale (and if they reach refactoring and optimizing is easy). Then, most important is is just to get started and the Native Driver is then the best choice because it totally rewires your brain. No scheme, just start. Want another field? Just save another key to this document (=record). Want a join to give users multiple options in a field? Just use an array. Want to save pictures in the DB and not in the filesystem with creating some file organization script, just put them in Mongo with GridFS too (which is fast btw). Let's not forget that Mongos JS interface and JSON data structure are very close to JS and do not feel low level, so native driver isn\t a low lewel driver, it basically provides the original Mongo JS interface which is very convenient and not low lewel at all. You don't have validations but as soon as you need them switch to Mongoose or write them yourself.

To get a proper db model and architecture it's definitely better to a design nice relational data model, use SQL, do migrations and if performance required, put some NoSQL or Redis in between (or whatever). BUT: this is all work and even with Rails where migrations are kind of easy, it is work beforehand and you have to plan a godd structure. This often prevents you just from starting and with the native driver you just start and in ridiculously many cases a plain document orientated data model is fully sufficient and even for those which would require rather a RDBMS this can be tweaked. Performance should never be a problem.

Point is: the classic approach with SQL, data models, mapping, ORMs is good but prevents you from just starting, "sketching" you program and getting out of the door. Latter is more fun and gets things done. Maybe later you have to refactor when a project is successful. But this is easier than doing all projects always in a structured and formal manner. And even if you will use Mongoose all the time it is good that you experienced once the Native Driver, that you know this thing exists and using Mongo with its native interface is as easy as using a toy.

You can extend to your heart's content with node on functionality - but you start with the bare minimum and build accordingly to your requirements. You aren't overwhelmed - you are presented with a basic set of building blocks, and when you cannot accomplish what you need to with the current set of blocks, you research the modules that meet those specific needs.

Think of it like building your own PHP stack from scratch from the source. Except with more of a dynamic perspective.

For example, standard crypto functions are not available in the base node, but installing the "crypto" module makes them available. Same for mysql, server pooling functions, clustering, and even a decent web/api "framework" (Express). You add as appropriate. you leave out what isn't needed.

Our team runs a huge PHP stack for all our apps, so it is a breath of fresh air to be faced with the notion that we are truly architecting our entire code platform, bottom up, vs just calling a bunch of pre-loaded functions. This also gives you greater visibility of the overall stack that your code is running under.