What is Express.js
Express.js and its importance
Before we introduce you to Express.js or just Express, let us understand that it is a Node.js framework.
Node.js is an open-source, backend JavaScript runtime environment for executing JavaScript code server-side.
To be precise, the servers and network applications are built with JavaScript. Node.js made server-side JavaScript coding a great possibility.
Though Node.js is an amazing choice for developing web applications and services, Express.js decreases complexity and makes building and taking care of applications easier.
What is Express.js
Express.js is the most famous Node web framework and is the core library for a plethora of other popular Node web frameworks.
With Express, there are libraries to operate with cookies, user logins, sessions etc.
Express is unopinionated in the sense that you can insert most of the compatible middleware you wish into the request handling chain in any order you want.
Express.js belongs to the MEAN and MERN stack. Express.js has tools to achieve most of the server tasks in just a few lines of code.
Express.js can be applied in single-page apps, middleware applications, RESTful APIs, enterprise web applications etc.
Express does not need a particular architecture; the developer can easily make out the web app’s structure.
MVC is the most prominent and useful structure for web applications and it is also the preferred one for Express.js.
In case of your request endpoints, Express.js lets you to develop web applications by building quite a simple interface.
Express.js encompasses everything in a better package as an enhancement to Node.js.
Important concepts of Express.js
The three important concepts in Express.js are routing, middleware, and request/response.
Routing
Routing is concerned with making out how an application responds to a client request to a specific endpoint.
Request /response
Request and response are the callback function parameters used in Express.js.
While the request object bears all the HTTP request information, the response object specifies the HTTP response that is passed by an Express.js app when it receives an HTTP request.
Middleware
Being a code that executes at the time of request/response lifecycle, middleware is generally applied to provide functionality or enhance the server’s behavior.
Each middleware possesses access to the HTTP request and response for each route it is related with.
What work can we do with Express.js?
- Express.js is a minimal and adaptable Node.js web application framework that offers a powerful set of features for mobile and web applications.
- Express.js lets installing middleware to respond to HTTP requests.
- Building a powerful API is instantaneous and easy with Express.js.
- Being a backend framework, Express.js works ideally with a frontend framework to create full-stack applications.
What are the benefits of Express.js?
- Express.js lets the developers to proceed with their projects in a streamlined and rapid way. This can be attributed to the easy configuration of Express.js.
- Express.js complements Node.js well, and hence scalability is assured. The developers can easily include nodes.
- Express.js has the great capability of deploying the same language for both backend and frontend development. JavaScript is the ultimate language for Express.js.
- The nonblocking IO system is one of the key benefits of Node.js. This is the reason behind the power with which Express.js can drive projects.
- Express’ middleware is developed such that catching errors is supported in both synchronous and asynchronous modes.
- Express.js has not stringent rules on handling specific tasks.
- Express.js has the support of Google V8 engine through which there would be better performance.
- Caching feature is a great benefit of Express.js wherein you needn’t execute the code again and again.
Node.js, Express.js and Angular JS
Front end alone will not be sufficient for a web app because you would have to protect your database.
For frontend, you can deploy Angular JS or React, and for backend Express.js can be used (you can use other backend too with this combination of frontend).
When the Node.js framework Express.js is available, you can develop backend quickly and easily.
The combination of Node.js, Express.js and Angular JS is something amazing, and you may even give up the LAMP language dependency.
Relevance of Express.js
The MEAN stack is one of the essential stacks of Express.js. The popularity of the MEAN stack adds to the value of Express.js.
Besides JQuery, Angular and React, Express.js is a top web development framework.
Being a great back-end web framework, the popularity of Express.js will not come down in the near future.
Though you may think that you can work on your web development project only with Node.js, Express.js is a great choice for your web development’s backend due to high scalability.
Express.js is used in organizations like IBM, Accenture, PayPal, Walmart, Flickr etc. This is a clear demonstration that Express.js is also used in production environments.
Now that you got an understanding on the concepts of Express.js, you would think of enrolling in a good software training institute to learn about it. Contacting Softlogic would be a wise step!
