Web Development with Node and Express, 2nd Edition

Chapter 4. Tidying Up

In the previous two chapters, we were just experimenting: dipping our toes into the waters, so to speak. Before we proceed to more complex functionality, we’re going to do some housekeeping and build some good habits into our work.

In this chapter, we’ll start our Meadowlark Travel project in earnest. Before we start building the website itself, though, we’re going to make sure we have the tools we need to produce a high-quality product.

Tip

The running example in this book is not necessarily one you have to follow. If you’re anxious to build your own website, you could follow the framework of the running example but modify it accordingly so that by the time you finish this book, you could have a finished website!

File and Directory Structure

Structuring applications has spawned many a religious debate, and there’s no one right way to do it. However, there are some common conventions that are helpful to know about.

It’s typical to try to restrict the number of files in your project root. Typically, you’ll find configuration files (like package.json), a README.md file, and a bunch of directories. Most source code goes under a directory often called src. For the sake of brevity, we won’t be using that convention in this book (nor does the Express scaffolding application do this, surprisingly). For real-world projects, you’ll probably eventually find that your project root gets cluttered if you’re putting source code there, and you’ll want to collect those ...