JSFoo 2011

Understand what CouchDB can do and learn how to build a CouchApp.

Outline

CouchDB is a schema-free document database that uses stored JavaScript functions for indexing and querying, and is accessed over a RESTful HTTP/JSON API.

CouchApps are applications hosted entirely within CouchDB, which serves as the web server, application layer and database all at once.

In addition to simplifying the server-side to just one piece of software infrastructure, CouchApps also benefit from the excellent replication capabilities built into CouchDB.

Although not every application would work well as a CouchApp, the API is flexible enough to suit a variety of scenarios - for example applications that need flexible schemas, REST APIs, CRUD pages, fine-grained access control, etc. can be built more quickly and robustly using CouchDB.

CouchDB concepts (map/reduce, update validation, list and show functions), tools (node couchapp) and techniques (access control, external processes) will be introduced and demonstrated by building a simple Point-of-Sale application as a CouchApp.

Requirements

Some experience with Javascript; Optionally, a laptop with CouchDB installed to follow the examples.

Links

• http://guide.couchdb.org/
• http://couchapp.org/