Container Services: Logging and Reporting
Logging and Exception Reporting are two obvious operational features every service must include. As we learned in the last post, Application Support in Docker-based Microservice Environments, building and deploying microservices makes implementing log infrastructure significantly more difficult.
The most difficult problem DevOps teams need to . . .
Posted in: architecturemicroservices
Use State Machines!
FSMs are not as complex as you think and they make your code better.
What is a State Machine?
Finite State Machines (FSM, or in the context of this post, simply "State Machines") are a methodology for modeling the behavior of an entity with an established lifecycle. The lifecycle is defined by an enumerated set of states known at the time of implementation (this is where the term "finite" . . .
Posted in: nodejsarchitecture
Scheduling Execution in Node.js
Differences between setTimeout, setImmediate, and process.nextTick.
A commonly misunderstood concept in Node.js is the difference between setTimeout, setImmediate, and process.nextTick. While all three functions are used to schedule the execution of a function, it is important to understand when Node.js will execute them.
Consider the following example:
setImmediate(() => console.log('Set . . .Posted in: nodejs
Application Support in Docker-based Microservice Environments
How to provide essential services with minimal application involvement.
Introduction
Operationalizing microservices is difficult and that difficulty has been exacerbated by how much the landscape has changed over the last 5 years. Personally, I've worked on a few microservice architectures and experienced the evolution of thoughts, patterns, and technologies that have brought us to where we are today. . . .
Reduce Test Boilerplate with Generic Test Functions
I wanted to quickly mention a trick I use to reduce the boilerplate code you'll often encounter when executing similar test cases. Instead of defining each test separately:
const { describe, it } = require('mocha'); const { expect } = require('chai'); const app = require('../../index.js'); const request = require( . . .Posted in: nodejs
The case against the generic use of PATCH and PUT in REST APIs
There is a lot of confusion among developers on how to implement updates using a REST API. The tools we are given (PATCH and PUT) don't actually map cleanly to how we would implement an update in our business code. Let's start by considering what those HTTP verbs mean:
PATCH: perform a partial update to a resource, particularly . . .
Enumerations in Node.js and Mongoose
Enumerations are essential to writing good software. Enumerations provide a clear understanding of the set of values that can be used for a property. This ensures we can constrain input to the set of values in the enumeration. Enumerations also signal to the reader the intended behavior of model instances (particularly if the enumerated field . . .
Posted in: nodejs