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Part 1 - Seriously, What The Hell Is REST?

This document provides an overview of REST principles and introduces a tutorial on building a single-page web application using REST concepts and MongoDB. It begins by reviewing the basics of setting up a Node.js and Express app with MongoDB from a previous tutorial. It then defines the goals of the current tutorial as using AJAX to eliminate page refreshes, and working with JSON data and HTTP methods to store, retrieve, update and delete data from MongoDB. The document proceeds to explain the core concepts of REST in plain English terms, including using HTTP methods explicitly, being stateless, exposing directory-like URIs, and transferring JSON. It concludes by outlining the setup steps for the tutorial, which will use Mongoskin instead of Monk

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48 views

Part 1 - Seriously, What The Hell Is REST?

This document provides an overview of REST principles and introduces a tutorial on building a single-page web application using REST concepts and MongoDB. It begins by reviewing the basics of setting up a Node.js and Express app with MongoDB from a previous tutorial. It then defines the goals of the current tutorial as using AJAX to eliminate page refreshes, and working with JSON data and HTTP methods to store, retrieve, update and delete data from MongoDB. The document proceeds to explain the core concepts of REST in plain English terms, including using HTTP methods explicitly, being stateless, exposing directory-like URIs, and transferring JSON. It concludes by outlining the setup steps for the tutorial, which will use Mongoskin instead of Monk

Uploaded by

pepe8647
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as ODT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 2

In my first tutorial, we looked at how to go from nothing installed, to a fully-functioning Node.

js
web app, using the Express framework, that reads from and writes to a MongoDB database.
That's a great start, and if you're unfamiliar with those technologies, now would be an excellent
time to go through the tutorial, because we're about to delve deeper. You're going to need to
know how to get a webserver running with Express, and how to use app.get and app.post to
communicate with both the server and the database. It's all covered in that original tutorial, and if
you're a developer who's familiar with JavaScript, it's not hard. Go check it out!

Back? or rolling your eyes and going, dude, I already know that stuff? Either way, great! Let's
add some new tools to our toolbox, and create a simple little app that works without a single page
refresh. Here are the goals:

Learn what REST means in plain English


Store and retrieve JSON data in a MongoDB collection using HTTP POST and HTTP GET
Remove data from the collection using HTTP DELETE
Use AJAX for all data operations
Update the DOM with jQuery

Basically, in the first tutorial, we built a simple front-end app atop the Router/View back-end. In
this tutorial, we're going to eliminate the need for page refreshing or visiting separate URIs entirely.
It's all going to work out fine. But before we start building, let's get some REST

Part 1 - Seriously, what the hell is REST?


Wikipedia, that infallible source, defines Representational State Transfer (REST) as: an
architectural style that abstracts the architectural elements within a distributed hypermedia system.
Everyone got that? We clear and ready to move on?
not so much?
Yeah, me either. I have no idea what a distributed hypermedia system is, and I'm OK admitting that.
Let's try to put the concepts of REST in plain English. To do that, we're going to borrow four basic
design principles from IBM's developerWorks website, and explain what they mean.

Use HTTP methods explicitly.


Be stateless.
Expose directory structure-like URIs.
Transfer XML, JavaScript Object Notation (JSON), or both.

Use HTTP Methods Explicitly


This one's pretty straightforward. To retrieve data, you use GET. To create data, you use POST. To
update or change data, you use PUT (not used in this tutorial). To delete data you use DELETE. So
for example, this once-common approach is not a good one:
http://www.domain.com/myservice/newuser.php?newuser=bob
That's an HTTP GET pretending to be a POST. You're GETting the web page and giving it data to
store in a DB at the same time. Instead, create a NewUser service and POST to it.
Be Stateless
This is a complicated concept but it boils down to don't store state information on the server. If
you must save state, save it on the client side via cookies or other methods. A front-end framework
like Angular (outside the scope of this tutorial, but stay tuned!) is particularly helpful here, as it
creates an entire client-side MVC setup where you can save and manipulate the state of elements
without hammering your server.
IBM gives a pagination example which is pretty good. A stateful design would hit a deliverPage
service that's been keeping track of the page you're on, and delivers the next one. a Stateless design
would populate prevPage, currPage, and nextPage data in the markup (hidden input fields,

JavaScript variables, data- attributes, and so on), and then HTTP GET a newPage service using the
nextPage parameter from the markup to request a specific page.
I've put together a quick JSFiddle illustrating what I'm talking about. Take a look and note that
we're never storing any page data on the server side. We merely take the current page value from
the DOM, and then when we get our new page, we update the DOM. That's simple, stateless
programming.
Expose directory structure-like URIs.
This one's easy. Instead of:
http://app.com/getfile.php?type=video&game=skyrim&pid=68
You want:
http://app.com/files/video/skyrim/68
Transfer XML, JavaScript Object Notation (JSON), or both.
This one's easy too! Just make sure that your back-end is sending XML or JSON (I prefer JSON,
especially in all-JavaScript setups like the one discussed in this tutorial). You can easily manipulate
this data in your presentation layer without having to hit your servers, unless you need new data.
OK so do we get the basics of REST? It's pretty straightforward, really. You've probably already
worked within systems that use it.

Part 2 - Setup
Now that we have an idea of what REST is all about, let's put it to work for us by building a
stupidly simple single-page web app that's completely valueless. Kind of like half the startups in the
Valley, amirite?! Is this thing on?
Anyway, no, we're not building a to-do list, though that's become the Hello World of web apps.
We're going to build a simple collection of usernames and emails, much like we did in our previous
tutorial. However, a few things need to be set up, and also we're going to tear down one thing:
Monk. We're switching over to Mongoskin for our MongoDB management. Why? Well, for one
thing, nothing significant's been committed to the Monk Github page in about a year, and that
makes me nervous. For another, Mongoskin is lightweight and doesn't require you to define
schemas the way Mongoose does, but it's a little more full-featured than Monk. The syntax is almost
identical.
So, let's get started. Make sure you've got the latest stable version of Node installed on your
machine, then fire up a console window and navigate to wherever you're storing these web projects.
For the purposes of this tutorial, that's C:\node\. If you're placing your work elsewhere (for example
/home or /Users), adjust accordingly.
The first thing we'll want to do is update Express and the Express scaffolding generator globally,
like this:

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