David Schovanec schovi

Better local require() paths for Node.js

Problem

When the directory structure of your Node.js application (not library!) has some depth, you end up with a lot of annoying relative paths in your require calls like:

const Article = require('../../../../app/models/article');

Those suck for maintenance and they're ugly.

Possible solutions

OBSOLETE

This entire guide is based on an old version of Homebrew/Node and no longer applies. It was only ever intended to fix a specific error message which has since been fixed. I've kept it here for historical purposes, but it should no longer be used. Homebrew maintainers have fixed things and the options mentioned don't exist and won't work.

I still believe it is better to manually install npm separately since having a generic package manager maintain another package manager is a bad idea, but the instructions below don't explain how to do that.

Fixing npm On Mac OS X for Homebrew Users

Installing node through Homebrew can cause problems with npm for globally installed packages. To fix it quickly, use the solution below. An explanation is also included at the end of this document.

CSS Layout Debugger

A tweet-sized debugger for visualizing your CSS layouts. Outlines every DOM element on your page a random (valid) CSS hex color.

One-line version to paste in your DevTools

Use $$ if your browser aliases it:

~ 108 byte version

Moving to ES6 from CoffeeScript

I fell in love with CoffeeScript a couple of years ago. Javascript has always seemed something of an interesting curiosity to me and I was happy to see the meteoric rise of Node.js, but coming from a background of Python I really preferred a cleaner syntax.

In any fast moving community it is inevitable that things will change, and so today we see a big shift toward ES6, the new version of Javascript. It incorporates a handful of the nicer features from CoffeeScript and is usable today through tools like Babel. Here are some of my thoughts and issues on moving away from CoffeeScript in favor of ES6.

While reading I suggest keeping open a tab to Babel's learning ES6 page. The examples there are great.

Punctuation

Holy punctuation, Batman! Say goodbye to your whitespace and hello to parenthesis, curly braces, and semicolons again. Even with the advanced ES6 syntax you'll find yourself writing a lot more punctuatio

	# If you are using ActiveRecord and want to paginate it you have to write this:
	# PeacefulPaginate.use_for_active_record!
	# to end of your config/environment.rb

	# If you want to override default .paginate method from WillPaginate gem you have to insert this
	# PeacefulPaginate.use_compatible_mod_with_will_paginate!
	# to end of your config/environment.rb
	# With this you dont have to rewrite nothing else in your application

	# In other way how to use it

	// TODO: Automatically create a useful isEqual function.
	function valueObject() {
	var names = arguments;
	function wrapped() {
	var o = this instanceof wrapped ? this : {}, i;
	if(arguments.length != names.length) {
	throw new TypeError("Expected " + names.length + " arguments, got " + arguments.length);
	}
	for(i = 0; i < names.length; i++) {
	o[names[i]] = arguments[i];

	// Boilerplate
	function objectUnion(definer) {
	var defined = 0, length = 0, isDefined = false, definitions, key;

	definitions = definer(function() {
	var names = arguments, fold;
	if(isDefined) {
	throw new TypeError('This objectUnion has already been defined');
	}
	function Ctor() {}

	DELETE
	DELETE _template/{name}
	DELETE {index}
	DELETE {index}/_alias/{name}
	DELETE {index}/_query
	DELETE {index}/_warmer
	DELETE {index}/_warmer/{name}
	DELETE {index}/{type}
	DELETE {index}/{type}/_mapping
	DELETE {index}/{type}/_query

	#Mounting the share is a 2 stage process:
	# 1. Create a directory that will be the mount point
	# 2. Mount the share to that directory

	#Create the mount point:
	mkdir share_name

	#Mount the share:
	mount_smbfs //username:[email protected]/share_name share_name/

	Example -1
	=====================

	input {
	file {
	path => [ "/usr/local/var/log/suricata/eve.json", "/var/log/ulogd.json" ]
	codec => json
	type => "json-log"
	}
	}