Useful Packages Every Node.js Developer Should Know
What is Node.js?
Node.js is used for various purposes like APIs, backend, frontend, robotics, and many more. NPM packages save lots of time and effort from the Node.js developers. As a professional developer or someone providing Node.js development services one should be aware of the latest and beneficial libraries.
Let us look at some useful packages of Node.js
A Node.js developer should be familiar with some of the useful packages in the market:
Husky
Table of Contents
If you have husky in your platform then every developer needs to automatically lint and test their code before pushing or committing it to the git repository. You have two codes for husky:
Pre-commit: This runs before the code is committed into the repository
Pre-push: This hook runs before the code is pushed into the repository
Date-fns
It has many functions that help in working with the dates easier for the developers. It consists of a toolset that can manipulate JavaScript dates in browser and Node.js.
Ramda
It is a practical and utility library for the JavaScript programmers that focuses on pure functional style. Ramda can make codes clean and simple as it does not have any side-effect or immutability on functions.
Dotenv
A module with zero dependencies that loads environment variables from .env file into the process.env. It stores the configuration and codes each in a separate environment.
ESLint
This is a tool used to avoid bugs and forces the developers to use coding standards. ESLint helps in identifying and reporting the patterns found in JavaScript or ECMAScript code.
Flat
This package takes nested JavaScript objects and flattens them. The developer can also unflatten the object using delimited keys.
JSON5
JSON5 is a superset of the JSON data-interchange format that focuses to alleviate the limitations of JSON to include some production of ECMA Script 5.1.
PM2
A production process manager for the Node.js application that has a built-in load balancer. It keeps the application alive forever, facilitates the common admin tasks, and reloads them without delays.
Helmet
Secure your express apps by setting the various HTTP headers with this library.
Socket.IO
This helps in bidirectional event-based communication in real-time.
CORS
To enable CORS with different options Node.js package has Connect or Express middleware.
Nodemailer
This helps in sending emails easily through Node.js.
Moment
It is a light-weighted JavaScript date library used for parsing, manipulating, validating, and formatting dates.
Lodash
It makes JavaScript easier by working on arrays, numbers, strings, and more. Their strong sections are:
- Testing and manipulating values
- Iterating strings, objects, and arrays
- Creating composite functions
Benefits of using Node.js
Scalability
The Node.js developers can easily scale the application in vertical and horizontal directions by adding nodes in the existing system. Developers can add extra resources in the single node that makes it highly scalable.
Easily Understandable
Most of the frontend developers have a good grasp of JavaScript programming language. So, it becomes easier to use Node.js in the backend and consume less time in the development process. Node.js works on a single language that can be used in both frontend and backend.
Full-stack developers
A business owner does not have to hire different developers for frontend and backend. As the client and server-side development can be done easily by a single developer that saves time and money.
High Performance
The Node.js engine compiles JavaScript code directly into machine code that makes it faster and easier to implement code in a precise manner.
Caching
The platform provides caching a single module as it is an open-source runtime environment. The developers do not re-execute the codes for caching because they get cached whenever there is a request that helps in faster page loads and responds easily to the users.
Highly Extensible
The developers can extend and customize the Node.js depending on the requirements. They can also use JSON to provide scope for exchanging data between client and web server.
Cross-Platform applications
Node.js can leverage platforms to build cross-platform in real-time web applications. The developer does not invest in writing separate codes for different versions like Windows, macOS, and Linux.
Self-Sufficient
It has a collection of repositories and ready-made modules for additional tools and libraries. It simplifies communications and saves time in organizational tasks.
Automation
It grants the options to schedule actions, share modification records, and automate repetitive operations. It has built-in libraries for UI templates and functionalities.
Core features of Node.js
- Prompt code execution
- Single-threaded
- Scalable
- Event-driven
- Supports widely recognized business
- Asynchronous Input and output
- Reusable code
Node.js is a great platform for building real-time web applications that are supported on cross-platforms. Node Package Manager is the library that is built by a huge community that resolves the generic problems on Node.js. Hire a Node.js developer from a professional organization that has a great portfolio and experience in Node.js. Reach us now and never miss any update or service of the Node.js, as we believe in putting our best efforts on each project we get. You can check