What this book covers

Chapter 1, Making a Web Server, covers serving dynamic and static content, caching files in memory, streaming large files straight from disk over HTTP, and securing your web server.

Chapter 2, Exploring the HTTP Object, explains receiving and processing POST requests and file uploads, using Node as an HTTP client, and discusses how to throttle downloads.

Chapter 3, Working with Data Serialization, explains how to convert data from your apps into XML and JSON formats for sending to the browser or third-party APIs.

Chapter 4, Interfacing with Databases, covers how to implement persistent data stores with Redis, CouchDB, MongoDB, MySQL, or plain CSV files.

Chapter 5, Transcending AJAX: Using WebSockets, helps you to make real-time web apps with modern browser WebSocket technology, gracefully degrade to long-polling and other methods with Socket.io.

Chapter 6, Accelerating Development with Express, explains how to leverage the Express framework to achieve rapid web development. It also covers using template languages and CSS engines, such as LESS and Stylus.

Chapter 7, Implementing Security, Encryption, and Authentication, explains how to set up an SSL secured web server, use the crypto module to create strong password hashes, and protect your users from cross-site request forgery attacks.

Chapter 8, Integrating Network Paradigms, discusses sending emails and creating your own email server, sending SMS text messages, implementing virtual hosting, and doing fun and interesting things with raw TCP.

Chapter 9, Writing Your Own Node Modules explains how to create a test suite, write a solution, refactor, improve and extend, and then deploy your own Node module.

Chapter 10, Taking It Live discusses how to deploy your web apps to a live server, ensure your apps stay live with crash recovery techniques, implement a continuous deployment work flow, or alternatively simply use a Platform as a Service Provider.