Node.js Design Patterns

Middleware

One of the most distinctive patterns in Node.js is definitely middleware. Unfortunately it's also one of the most confusing for the inexperienced, especially for developers coming from the enterprise programming world. The reason for the disorientation is probably connected with the meaning of the term middleware, which in the enterprise architecture's jargon represents the various software suites that help to abstract lower level mechanisms such as OS APIs, network communications, memory management, and so on, allowing the developer to focus only on the business case of the application. In this context, the term middleware recalls topics such as CORBA, Enterprise Service Bus, Spring, JBoss, but in its more generic meaning it can also ...