The LAMP stack is a well know and ubiquitous web development stack, but have you heard of MEAN? It's an up and coming stack that's unified by a single language, JavaScript. Learn the basic components of the MEAN stack as well as practical use case and applications.

1. It’s time to get
After the

2. About Jeff Fox (@jfox015)
Assoc.Dir.,DigitalExperienceTechLead
StarwoodHotelsandResorts
• Nineteen year web development veteran
• (Almost) entirely self-taught in programming, web
and related technologies
• Front end specialist with full stack skills/experience,
main core capability used to be Flash 
• Background in Graphic Design and art, music
production & engineering and “entertainment
services”
• Experience working for fortune 100 companies
down to creative agencies with as few as 10 people

3. Agenda
•Quickie LAMP Review
•Four Components of the MEAN stack
(and a fifth bonus item too)
•Wrap-up (with use cases)
•Questions
•Shatner

4. We all know
LAMP is a combination of four of the most popular open
source technologies that form one of the most popular
and ubiquitous platform stacks used on the web. It’s
estimated that 82% of web sites run on some version of
PHP [1]
[1] Source: http://www.w3techs.com/technologies/details/pl-php/all/all

5. LAMP is popular
Some popular sites using PHP:

6. LAMP is popular
Wordpress hosted blogs
and sites alone account
for some 4.5% of all web
sites [1]
[1] http://www.codeinwp.com/blog/mesmerizing-wordpress-stats/
[2] http://expandedramblings.com/index.php/wordpress-statistics/
[3] https://www.hostt.com/wordpress-stats-for-2015/
[4] https://managewp.com/14-surprising-statistics-about-wordpress-usage
• 74.6 Million Sites Depend on WordPress [2]
• 22% of New U.S. Registered Domains Run on
WordPress [3]
• WordPress.com Gets More Unique US Visitors
(126M) per month Than Amazon (96M) [4]

7. What is M.E.A.N?
Mean is a combination of four technologies that also
form a single platform stack. The common element
between them is JavaScript.

8. NODE JS
About…

9. About NodeJS
“Node's goal is to provide an easy
way to build scalable network
programs.”
-- nodejs.org

10. Components of NodeJs
• NodeJs runs on the V-8 Engine.
• The V-8 Engine is an open source JavaScript engine created
and developer by Google which also powers the Chrome
browser.
• V8 compiles JavaScript to native machine code (IA-32, x86-64,
ARM, or MIPS ISAs) before executing it, instead of more
traditional techniques such as executing byte code or
interpreting it.
• Node uses CommonJS specifications for common modular
package management format
• Uses NPM (Node Package Manager) to manage dependencies

11. How does Node work?
• Node.js uses an event-driven, non-blocking I/O model, which
makes it lightweight
• It makes use of event-loops via JavaScript’s callback
functionality to implement a non- blocking I/O
• While time consuming file and disk operations block script
execution in PHP, Node JS commands execute in parallel, and
use callbacks to signal completion or failure)

12. Event Driven Example

13. Node in the Wild
How is Node being used?
API Servers
Mobile backends and full-stack
JavaScript hybrid apps
Internet of things (IoT)
Web – HTTP servers
and single page apps

14. Node Pros and Cons
Pros
Fast – Execution speed
Faster to market –
development speed
Less lines of code
Great community
Proven with high volume
systems
Most suited for
networking, I/O
intensive applications
Cons
Writing a large business
logic centric system is
cumbersome
Callback hell
Exception handling is
not straight forward
Writing event driven
code is complex
compared to
synchronous code
Source: NodeJS - Server Side JS

15. Node vs Java
• 20+ years development
testing making a rock solid
foundation
• Not as fast and Node, but
absolutely a more
trustworthy environment
• Well know coding and
debugging support in all
major IDEs
• True multi-threaded server
support
• No, XML used for Ant and
Maven builds for example
MATURITY
SPEED
TOOLS
THREADING
UNIFIED
LANGUAGE
• Younger player (launched in
2009) with less real world
battle testing
• Blazing fast execution, but
sacrifices overall server
safety for it
• Modern IDE tools support via
add-ons for code-completion
and some debugging
• Node simulated multi-
threading via an event loop
• Node uses JavaScript in all
aspects of the development
Source: Java vs. Node.js: An epic battle for developer mind share

16. EXPRESS
About…

17. About Express
• Popular NodeJS Server framework library
• Inspired by the Sinatra framework for Ruby
• Minimal and flexible application design
• Handles many operations through HTTP helper
utilities and the use of middleware
• Easy to set up a working Express server in just
few lines of code
• Supports single page, multi-page and hybrid web
applications

18. A basic Express app

19. Express Middleware
Middleware is any number of functions that are invoked by the
Express.js routing layer before the final request handler is called
• Express Middleware is simply a function with three arguments
• req – The HTTP Request
• res – HTTP Response
• next – Another Middleware to forward to after the function
completes
• Middleware is always invoked in the order added.
• You can have multiple middleware for the same path.
• Middleware has full access to the request and response objects.
• Be mindful of middleware overriding fields of other middleware.
• Middleware can be skipped by using the next function.

20. Express Middleware

21. Components of Express
• Runs using NodeJs
• App is the web application runtime
• Middleware modules handle many routine operations:
• Connect is a set of middleware that includes many helper
modules
• logger
• csrf Cross-site request forgery
protection
• compress Gzip compression
basicAuth http authentication
• bodyParser extensible request
body parser
• json application/json parser
• multipart multipart/form-data
parser
• timeout request timeouts
• cookieParser cookie parser
• session session management support
with bundled MemoryStore
• cookieSession cookie-based session
support
• methodOverride faux HTTP method
support
• favicon efficient favicon server (with
default icon)
• query automatic querystring parser,
populating req.query
• errorHandler flexible error handler

22. Express Routing
• Handles HTTP and RESTful calls over HTTP
• Can direct to Middleware, MVC controllers, use templates or
return files

23. JADE TEMPLATES
About…
Soon to be re-
released as PUG

24. About Jade
• High performance template engine heavily influenced by
Haml and implemented with JavaScript for Node
• No need to worry about closing tags
• Significant white space enforces clear coding convention
between team members
• Layout Inheritance
• Allows for full JavaScript expressions but makes it just
awkward enough to discourage full blown logic in the
views
• Support for inline Markdown and CoffeeScript
Source: Comparing JavaScript Templating Engines: Jade, Mustache, Dust and More

25. Jade Example

26. Jade vs other Node templates
Jade Mustache Dust NunJucks EJS
No Closing
Tags
Async
Layout
Inheritance
Streaming
Custom tags
High Learning
Curve
White Space
Significance
Easy Includes/
Partials
Source: Comparing JavaScript Templating Engines: Jade, Mustache, Dust and More

27. MONGODB
About…

28. Not that Mongo

29. About MongoDB
• An open source, cross platform database
• Stores data in JSON like documents with dynamic
schemas (called BSON)
• Fourth most popular database system worldwide
as of Jan 2016 [1]
• A “no sql” database
without relational
connections, search
an API
[1] http://db-engines.com/en/ranking

30. Data Design Comparison
Traditional Data Design
• Static, uniform, scalar
data
• Data “looks” like
rectangles
• Low level physical
representation
Document Data Design
• Flexible and capable of
rich shapes
• Based on objects
• High level business
representation

31. Advantages of No-SQL Design
• Agility
• Start developing without an extremely long ER (entry-
relationship) model design
• Flexible for schema changes as you go without penalty
• Polymorphic schema models variable structure with ease
• Scalability
• Shared-nothing architecture vs centrally controlled system
(eliminates any single point of failure, allows self-healing
capabilities and non-disruptive upgrades)
• Scales horizontally, linearly
• Sharding and load balancing
• Auto-balance ensures a balances cluster
Source: MongoDB and the Internet of Things

32. Mongo and Relational DB

33. Major Use Cases…
…and Major Users
• Big Data (Github)
• Internet of Things (Bosch)
• Complex Data Management (Cushman & Wakefield)
• Mobile Apps (Twitter, Foursquare)
• Customer Data Management (Intuit)
• Social Networking and Collaboration (Cisco, Eventbright)
• Content Management (New York Times, Adobe AEM,
eBay)
• Embedded (Sitecore)

34. Oracle vs MongoDB
• Oranges
• Created in 2009
• Document SQL-Less Model
• Supports Replication,
Horizontal scale and
Sharding
• Queries using JavaScript
• MIT License
• Free for commercial use
• JSON (with BSON)
• Supported by multiple
cloud platforms
• Apples
• Created in 1936
• Relational Model
• Supports Replication and
Horizontal scale
• Queries using SQL
• Proprietary License
• Large Price tag
• Multiple data Types
• Cloud Ready on Oracle
Cloud Platform

35. ANGULARJS
About…

36. About AngularJS
• “Super heroic” framework created and
developed by Google
• Highly suited to single page front end web
applications
• Version 1.x attempted to solve many web
application shortcomings in HTML 5 and
JavaScript
• Version 2.x tightly incorporates the latest
improvements in JavaScript and modular front
end design methodologies

37. Anatomy of Angular 1.x

38. Anatomy of an Angular 1.x App
Index
html
App.js
Angular
BootstrapJquery
Plugins
CSS
CSS
CSS
CSS
HTML
Partial
REST API
HTML
Partial
HTML
Partial
$http
Controller
Routing
Controller Controller
ServicesServicesServices/
Providers
Directives
Filters
Angular Module
$rootScopeJquery

39. About Angular 2
• Angular 2 went final on 9/15!
• Version 2 sheds the non-standard 1.x conventions and
embraces forward looking web standards like
ECMAScript 6, Web Components as well as JS supersets
like TypeScript
• Component based architectural style
• Highly Improved routing
• Carries forward the ideology of Angular 1.x though the
code will look very different
• Focus on performance, transparency of Angular
“internals” Change Detection and Rendering
• Angular 2 has a simplified API for injecting dependencies
into components via ES6 Modules

40. Anatomy of an Angular 2 App

41. Angular 1 vs 2 Components

42. Big Changes in Angular 2
• Embraces ES6 Modules/Component Design
• Goodbye $scope (we hardly knew you) and DDO
• Ultra-Fast Change detection
• Changes in state managed through new Zones concept instead of
“dirty checking”
• Uses the new Object.observe property
• Major Routing Improvements
• Uni-Directional data flow (Similar to Facebook’s React)
• Angular 1.x’s popular 2-way data binding is removed
• ng-model replaced by new Form Directives
• Improved Template syntax with Property and Event bindings
instead of overuse of directives

43. $scope no more

44. One Framework, many langs
• Angular 2 supports multiple variants of vanilla JavaScript
Including:
• TypeScript
• Dart
• ES6
• ES5
• TypeScript is a strongly typed superset of JavaScript
currently in development at Microsoft. Angular 2 uses it
after an agreement between Google and Microsoft
• Pros
• Strong typed for larger codebases/teams
• Cons
• Learning curve over traditional JavaScript
• Must be compiled
• Complicated to setup (requires definition files)

45. So can we use it in
production yet?
• Angular 2 went gold YESTERDAY so yes
• Consider, however, that supporting technologies like
ECMAScript 6, TypeScript and Web Components will
require compilers and polyfills until
native support is universally
achieved

46. WRAP UP
Tying it all together

47. Summary
• The MEAN stack is comprised of four JavaScript based
technologies
• It can provide a flexible and powerful web development
environment to quickly build fast and scalable web apps
• Leverages a single language allowing for development using
resources with a similar coding toolset
• Node is a powerful platform for real-time, I/O web
applications and APIs
• Express is a flexible server platform capable of complex MVC
development
• Mongo is a SQL-less document driven database technology
• Angular is a front end framework that allows development of
dynamic single page web application front-ends

48. MEAN at work
• Best case scenarios for using Node:
• Backend for RESTful data APIs
• Streaming or real time app servers, like chat or
associate communication servers
• Apps/sites with small budget and tight timelines
• Internal dynamic web based tools (Call Centers,
Employee Support, Knowledge bases, etc.)
• Monitoring Dashboards
• Avoid for:
• Business logic centric systems (Java outperforms)
• Heavy server side computation

49. Want a more thorough look?
• Take a hands on deep dive into the design of a simple
MEAN based CRUD app
• Github/jfox015 – Coming soon!

50. QUESTIONS?
Anyone? Bueller?!?

51. Recommended Resources
• NodeJS - Server Side JS
• Best practices for Express app structure
• Express.js Middleware Demystified
• How to test your MongoDB models under Node & Express
• Unit Testing Express Middleware
• Unit Testing Express Middleware / TDD with Express and
Mocha
• Test driven Development of Web Apps in Node.Js
• Node.js frameworks
• Oracle vs. MongoDB
• Angular 2 vs Angular 1

52. Connect with or stalk me
(Entirelyuptoyou)
•Web Site: jfox015.com
•Twitter: @jfox015
•Github: Github.com/jfox015
•Slideshare: Slideshare.net/jfox015
•LinkedIn: Linkedin.com/in/jfox015

53. Thank you!