How should I implement a RESTful API with a web frontend in Node.js?
express, node.js, railway.js, rest, restify
Solution
It doesn't make sense to use a complex framework such as Railway, which is built on top of Express and tries to resemble Ruby on Rails.
You should either choose Express or Restify, not both.
I would pick Express over Restify because the code is excellently documented and the library is more mature and heavily used. You can find a bunch of useful tutorials on how to make such apps with Express, and the API is great:
var express = require('express')
, app = express.createServer();
var users = [{ name: 'tj' }];
app.all('/user/:id/:op?', function(req, res, next){
req.user = users[req.params.id];
if (req.user) {
next();
} else {
next(new Error('cannot find user ' + req.params.id));
}
});
app.get('/user/:id', function(req, res){
res.send('viewing ' + req.user.name);
});
app.get('/user/:id/edit', function(req, res){
res.send('editing ' + req.user.name);
});
app.put('/user/:id', function(req, res){
res.send('updating ' + req.user.name);
});
app.get('*', function(req, res){
res.send('what???', 404);
});
app.listen(3000);
Problem
I have a setup consisting of multiple servers (written in Java) that need to communicate towards a central server, posting status updates every so often. These status updates will get written to a database, probably MongoDB/Mongoose which will be handled by the web end via REST. I have been looking at Restify and Express as two ways to approach this problem. The website will query the database as well as the REST api. How should I approach this? Should I use both Restify and Express to create a website with an API? Should I use Railway? Thanks.