NodeJS weather app
TWeather-stats should be reaching out to external weather services (provided via npm modules or using HTTP requests) and make a webhook call every 20 minutes giving a status update of the current weather.
To do this, the following will be required:
- Setup a timer
- Establish a connection with a weather service
- Translate and handle data as it comes in
- Make webhooks calls every 20 minutes to an online endpoint or when there is a drastic change in weather.
They way I have set this up is very similar to the current architecture that is used at Droplit, using TypeScript and Gulp to lint and build the project, respectively. Gulp is the automation that many software development teams thrive on. Either that or Grunt. This does all of the work of taking TypeScript and converting it into JavaScript, linting to tell you if the TypeScript is wrong, and building and running the project.
Gulp commands
- gulp build - Lints and builds the project's source files (
app/src) into JavaScript and places the lint and js files inapp/lib. - gulp watch - Does the same thing as build, but every time you make an change to the source files, the project will rebuild.
- gulp clean - in case of emergency, this removes the lib folder so you can start over with a fresh build,
- gulp debug - starts the application in debug mode. Debug mode attaches to watch so if you are debugging with watch on in another window, the debugging application will restart automatically.
Anything JavaScript-related can be found here or on StackOverflow. I would highly reccomend googling any question you have before reaching out to me, as there is almost certaintly an answer online, as the JavaScript community is breathtakingly large.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/
There is a lot of good information on working with npm and installing modules.
https://docs.npmjs.com/getting-started/installing-node
This is a superset of the JavaScript (ES) language, which compiles down into JavaScript. It is super handy because it enables TypeScript for the JavaScript language, something you see in other modern languages like C# or Java.
For more information on TypeScript, take a look at the TypeScript Handbook. reference: https://www.TypeScriptlang.org/docs/tutorial.html
- Typings - adds type references for external modules (like an ext. lib)
- .ts files - TypeScript files
- .tslint.json - adds linting for your code editor
- .tsconfig - configuration file for the TypeScript compiler
This project has already been setup with all of the automation that you could really want using the tools specified. If you'd like to learn more about the build tool chain and how grunt does it's automation, as well as learning how to build automated tool chains with this, the Gulp git page is helpful.
https://github.com/gulpjs/gulp/blob/master/docs/getting-started.md
Connect.io is a data visualization tool, and they have been bugging me to
integrate their services with my services for years at this point. If you add
the connect.io module and send them the weather data, you will be able to see
the weather metrics in any form your desire, as you can modify the query which
creates the visualization. I'm not going to leave much information here other
than the note that adding this to the projects willl solidify your understanding
of how NPM works with external modules, and how to look at an external API and
integrate it into your project - two skills any Node developer developer needs
to acquire to be competent.