Learning HTML5

Now that we have some understanding of some of the capabilities of Node.js, it is time to investigate its true strength – as a web server. Recall that many reseller accounts will not allow Node.js to act as a server as it is viewed as a long running task (and most of these accounts prohibit such activity). That being said, it is still highly useful in the localhost environment. In this weblog post, I will walk through some of the fundamentals in the use of Node.js in a local environment. Continue reading →

I realize that not everyone wants to write HTML. Tools like Dreamweaver make it much simpler, but there are times (particularly when taking notes) that an alternative might be more appropriate. Markdown has been around for a number of years. Essentially, you markup your document in plain text and can than convert it to HTML (or PDF or other format). For those just getting started writing HTML, you might consider using this as a starting point to better understand how the pieces fit together. I do teach web page development and design. So, why mention a tool like Markdown? Simple, it plays nice with Node.js and I am putting together several weblog posts on Node.js. Let’s first learn a little about Markdown syntax. Continue reading →

Node.js uses JavaScript to run a web server – yes, JavaScript on the server. One of the main benefits is that a single language is used on both the client and server sides (JavaScript). I know some would argue that JavaScript is not a “true” programming language since it is interpreted. That being said, one can specify use strict; to better enforce some of the loose typing of variables. If one relies on the Chrome JavaScript engine (which Node.js does), it can actually run faster than code written in PHP or Ruby. Of course the mileage will vary depending on the application. Given that I teach multiple classes in JavaScript, I thought it appropriate to discuss the fundamentals of Node.js in this post. This was also spurred by a recent presentation on Node.js by Larry Ball at one of our recent Web Professionals and Adobe User Group meetings. For initial purposes, I am focusing on the use of Node.js to check JavaScript code for syntax errors. I may expand on this with additional examples in a later post. Given that many reseller hosting accounts will not allow Node.js to run natively (it is viewed as a long running task – which is not permitted), I will focus on running Node.js on a local computer. Continue reading →