Before you go slur insults at your colleague, we are talking about the MEAN Software stack here.
MEAN stands for
MongoDB- The NoSQL Database, is a free and open-source cross-platform document-oriented database program which uses JSON-like documents with schemas.
Express- a web application framework for Node.js again a open source product designed to build web applications and APIs.
AngularJS: Maintained by Google and other communities and companies, Angular JS is a Open source front-end web application framework.
NodeJS: Is an open source, cross platform execution environment for event-driven server-side and networking applications.
With their powers combined, I am Captain Planet
So with their powers combined, MEAN Stack becomes an opinionated fullstack javascript framework — which simplifies and accelerates web application development.
Ok but, so why use it?
Firstly, it is open source!! :)
Also, AngularJS makes the development of single page applications easy and structured. It has data-binding ability for HTML elements which makes the user experience better by making it easy for the pages to be easily responsive. Angular directly controls the DOM element which is faster than inserting inner HTML code.
Node and angular are written in JavaScript, the same language. So no need of multiple coding language expertise hence a save on hiring. The basic data-transfer and the working all happens through JSON. In MongoDB, which is a document based database, the data is stored in JSON format making it easy and faster to use along with JS based applications. This saves time and efforts as there is no need of additional libraries to handle the conversion when using MongoDB with NodeJS. Also, it is extremely scalable and has a technique called sharding which enables horizontal scalability.
Further, NodeJS is asynchronous. So all executions almost happens simultaneously unless you want them to be synchronous. This reduces idle time, ie, the time server waits for processing of data or so on. The speed of the application will significantly increase. Node.js is Javascript. So the same language can be used on the Backend and Frontend. This in effect means it breaks down the boundaries between front- and back-end development. This reduces the development time as the developer doesn’t have to build both aspects from scratch and gives greater scope for re-usability.
In totality, MEAN Stack is one single language for the entire development cycle. With an amazing community support, it has packages for almost all kinds of functions.
Its cost effective, time saving, open source, scalable and faster.
Contributed by foOfys Tech Lead, Sajin M Prasad.
