Nodejs and Mongo using some MEAN Typescript

What server side Framework should I use on side projects?

At work, I don't always get to choose which languages or frameworks I get to develop in. For example, for the last year and half I have been using Typescript and Angular 2 on the client side with .NET web services written in C# on the server side.

So during the last year and half I have come to really enjoy Angular 2 and Typescript. However when developing a project on the side, I usually don't like all the overhead that comes along with .NET web services. I also tend to lean toward something that I can get up and running quickly. I have usually leaned toward something like Ruby on Rails to develop my server side APIs.

Using the same framework and languages all the time can get boring. So I thought I would look into a new framework to play around with. As I mentioned I have come to love javascript, more specifically Typescript. Due to this I thought I would look into using the MEAN stack, while writing my NodeJS code with Typescript. With NodeJS I get a lot of the speed and quick development time that I have come to enjoy with Rails, while also getting other benefits such as web sockets, less memory utilization, and speed. Then with Typescript I get the sugar coating that makes javascript look and feel like a real Object Oriented language, along with the added security of typing and compilation errors.

So now that I know I wanted to use NodeJS and Typescript, I went about looking for a quick and easy tutorial on how to get up and running with both. While I found nice seed projects and such for doing NodeJS there was very little on how to incorporate Typescript and use it with NodeJS. This is where I will hopefully save you some time.

The Force of the Shadow DOM

AngularJS had Transclusion and now Angular 2 has the force of the Shadow DOM.

The problem we will be looking at is, how to inject HTML markup into a component we have created.

<accordian>
    <panel>
      <div title>Panel Title</div>
      <div content>
        My first test content section.
      </div>
    </panel>
    <panel>
      <div title>Panel Title 2</div>
      <div content>
        My second test content section.
      </div>
    </panel>
  </accordian>

So that it looks like the bootstrap accordian.

Panel Title

My first test content section.

Panel Title 2

My seond test content section.

Rating Systems and Elo Ratings

I have always been a big sports fan. So being a developer, and an avid sports fan, I have always been intrigued by computer rankings and how to remove the subjectivity when determining the best team. My interest grew through the years partly because of the fact that until 3 years ago college football determined their champion based off the winner of the BCS National Championship game. The game was played by the top two teams in its poll which were determined by a mixture of human polls and computer polls. This caused many annalists and sports fans to cringe, because how could a computer know who the best teams ... read more

The Keys to the Kingdom From Angular 1 to 2

AngularJS was originally created back in 2009. It was built initially with the hope of helping web designers sprinkle a little magic into their html. What happened instead was the revolution of the single page application. While AngularJS is still very powerful it has its warts, after all it was built with design first in mind. Given new libraries and architectures like Flux with React coming out, with speed and developer savvy in mind, AngularJS needed a revamp.

Now that the revamp of AngularJS is here, in the form of Angular 2. Currently production ready in rc phase 4. After all we are talking Google and everything in production is beta. I think it is now time to investigate the Keys to the Kingdom of Angular 2. ... read more