In Depth on my first NodeJs / Express Stack

The whole goal of my hobby site is to iteratively create the simplest website that could possibly work using all “new to me” stacks. Getting a static site up and running on my own Linux CentOS with Lighttpd was definitely simple. Getting a NodeJs web service up and running with Express was equally simple, but making it production quality was definitely a frustrating experience for me.

My initial experience with NodeJs was exhilarating. I had a web server & app running with just a few lines of code, but then I quickly soured on the whole platform when I found TDD & mocking to be more difficult than I feel it should be. I’m happy to say that through a bit of research and effort, I now have a stack that I’m relatively happy with.  I want to capture the struggles and solutions while they’re still fresh in my mind.