joepie91

The One Secret Trick To Becoming A Genius Programmer

Okay, the title of this post is a bit of a lie. There's no one secret trick to becoming a genius programmer - there are two, and they're more habits than tricks. Nevertheless, these kind of 'secret tricks' seem to resonate with people, so I went for this title anyway.

Every once in a while, a somewhat strange thing happens to me. I'll be helping somebody out on IRC - usually a beginner - answering a number of their questions in rapid succession, about a variety of topics. Then after a while, they call me a "genius" for being able to answer everything they're asking; either directly, or while talking about me to somebody else.

Now, I don't really agree with this "genius" characterization, and it can make me feel a bit awkward, but it shows that a lot of developers have a somewhat idealistic and nebulous notion of the "genius programmer" - the programmer that knows everything, who can do everything, who's never stumped by a problem, and of which ther

joepie91

While a lot of Node.js guides recommend using JWT as an alternative to session cookies (sometimes even mistakenly calling it "more secure than cookies"), this is a terrible idea. JWTs are absolutely not a secure way to deal with user authentication/sessions, and this article goes into more detail about that.

Secure user authentication requires the use of session cookies.

Cookies are small key/value pairs that are usually sent by a server, and stored on the client (often a browser). The client then sends this key/value pair back with every request, in a HTTP header. This way, unique clients can be identified between requests, and client-side settings can be stored and used by the server.

Session cookies are cookies containing a unique session ID that is generated by the server. This session ID is used by the server to identify the client whenever it makes a request, and to associate session data with that request.

*S

joepie91

Read this first!

Hi there! Since this post was originally written, nvm has gained some new tools, and some people have suggested alternative (and potentially better) approaches for modern systems. Make sure to have a look at the comments to this article, before following this guide!

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The original article

Trickier than it seems.

StoneCypher

// this is the react app.  it knows nothing of the vanilla app, other than that the information
// will come in in props, and that it should call this hook when this button is pressed, or etc

var Spinner = (props) => 
  <div>
    {this.props.data}
    <button value="↑" onclick={this.props.hooks.inc}/>
    <button value="↓" onclick={this.props.hooks.dec}/>
  </div>;

joepie91

"How do I get started with Node?" is a commonly heard question in #Node.js. This gist is an attempt to compile some of the answers to that question. It's a perpetual work-in-progress.

And if this list didn't quite answer your questions, I'm available for tutoring and code review! A donation is also welcome :)

Setting expectations

Before you get started learning about JavaScript and Node.js, there's one very important article you need to read: Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years.

Understand that it's going to take time to learn Node.js, just like it would take time to learn any other specialized topic - and that you're not going to learn effectively just by reading things, or following tutorials or courses. _Get out there and build things!