Web applications are necessary to enhance the visibility of a business organization and help them achieve better ROI. Therefore, firms need to choose the right web development language to get the best results. Node.js has emerged as a leading programming language for developing web applications. But in hindsight, there are some complications that developers face with Node.js app maintenance.
While Node.js has been revolutionary in developing web apps, certain malfunctions discourage remote developers from selecting this development language.For those going with Node.js app development, maintenance of the Node.js apps becomes very important. Let’s cover the possible hurdles faced in Node.js app maintenance. After stating the challenges, we’ll focus on the remedies for helping dedicated Node.js developers overcome these problems.
If proper attention isn’t given to maintenance, applications can face extreme issues with flexibility and stability. Poor quality code is one of the prime reasons apps become difficult to scale. On top of that, failing to properly maintain Node.js apps will make adding new features even more difficult. Regular Node.js app maintenance helps app developers in improving the existing functionalities and building new ones.
Let’s have a look at our list of top challenges in Node.js app maintenance.
One must understand that Node.js is a single-threaded process. This makes app scaling a bit difficult for Node.js web app developers. Moreover, a single-threaded process makes it practically impossible to execute other code in parallel. Node.js error handling ability also gets challenging because of the single-threaded process. When one code is running on Node.js, it cannot respond to other requests. Therefore, it becomes difficult for the Node.js app developers to scale the app and use it for high-end functions.
Developers can use the asynchronous handling feature to solve this challenge in Node.js app maintenance. Asynchronous handling helps apps handle multiple features at a time and doesn’t block any requests.
Well-defined documentation is necessary for developing and deploying apps in an exact manner. Moreover, documentation plays a crucial role in assisting Node.js developers in understanding the purpose and functionality of the app.
While doing Node.js app maintenance, poor documentation becomes a major hurdle, diverting Node.js developers from their main aim. Poor documentation also makes it difficult for Node.js application developers to connect the main components of the app.
Node.js is an open-source app with a very active community developing various applications. In addition, the programming language offers a plethora of ways of building applications. This can create havoc due to the lack of common best practices among developers.
Too many options can lead to app structure incongruence, making Node.js app development even more difficult for rookie developers. Although there are some excellent tools for Node.js monitoring, the overall ecosystem is relatively immature. Therefore, it is crucial to implement only well-tested design patterns from Java for effective Node.js code maintenance.
Another roadblock in Node.js app maintenance is that it doesn’t render anything specific in the app development process. Node.js development frameworks are mostly unopinionated. Therefore, no specific guidelines exist on how code should be written.
Maintaining Node.js apps becomes difficult as each app requires an individual approach, and thus the entire app development process will take more time. Moreover, dedicated Node.js developers would have to be more proficient in maintaining code internally.
After looking at the bottlenecks in Node.js maintenance, here are some of the top solutions that can help developers overcome maintenance problems in Node.js applications.
The problem in maintaining Node.js apps lies in its monolithic architecture, which always extracts microservices from the app and allows them to work separately. Doing this process will streamline scalability by enabling the app to move services around different machines.
Having multiple teams work on a monolithic application can also be problematic. Therefore, divide Node.js apps into microservices to allow teams to work in isolated environments. This process is extremely useful when hiring a new team and also assists skilled developers in Node.js performance monitoring.
For any language, proper documentation is necessary for great team communication and efficient app development. Node.js developers should always make sure all general information, as well as specifics, are covered while making app documentation. Better documentation enhances the efficiency of the app and also helps when using Node.js monitoring tools.
Node.js app maintenance becomes easier as proper documentation makes everything easily accessible to everyone in the team. Whenever a developer finds loopholes in the documentation, be sure to make documentation in that area of the app more exhaustive.
Root cause analysis is key for all application maintenance, as it speeds issue resolution. Also, Nodejs developers should include code refactoring in the daily development process to ensure inconsistent code is not pushed to production. Experienced Node.js developers will look into architectural problems, determine whether hosts are too weak, implement auto scaling processes, rewrite parts of the code as needed and more.
To have Node.js app development properly done, the developers must have a fully-featured monitoring service in a place like Instana, NewRelic or Retrace full lifecycle APM.
If the Node.js app works well, but the code quality is low, look to clean up the file structure and divide it into logical units. Also, add code refactoring to your the daily development process to ensure inconsistent code is never pushed into production.
Implementing Codebeat, a static code analysis tool, Prefix, a real-time code profiler, or Typescript or Flow, which are type systems, is also beneficial.
Node.js app developers should consistently look at optimizing code performance to ensure the entire codebase delivers peak performance. This also helps in Node.js error handling, in addition to improving your Node.js maintenance process.
There is no doubt that Node.js is great for many app solutions, but like any other technology, it also has a flip side. Therefore, make sure your internal team includes experienced Node.js developers to ensure great app maintenance. Perform regular code reviews to easily identify and resolve a variety of problems in the Node.js app maintenance. Or, consider hiring from top Node.js development companies that will dig deep into the problem, discuss your specific app needs, verify documentation and more.
Stackify's APM tools are used by thousands of .NET, Java, PHP, Node.js, Python, & Ruby developers all over the world.
Explore Retrace's product features to learn more.
If you would like to be a guest contributor to the Stackify blog please reach out to stackify@stackify.com
