JSFoo Pune 2019

While error handling is not new to JavaScript or Node JS application development, it still seems that a lot of people aren’t quite sure how to handle errors in the most productive way. Actually, it’s an issue that affects most programmers. We like our code to work well, so we tend to run it in such a way that maximizes its chances of success. One of the side effects of this tendency is that bugs are only dealt with after everything works. This can lead to a lot of haphazard error handling that is both hard to debug and less than useful to us. So how do we overcome this problem?

This talk emphasizes on formulating solutions to the above mentioned scenario. The key aspects of the talk would be to :

1. Understand some of the general mistakes we make while developing Node JS applications
2. The concepts we miss out on when it comes to debugging and handling errors
3. Best practices on how one can log errors systematically to make them more visible
4. Handling errors in a centralised fashion
5. Building an alerting pipeline that can notify the application developers or admins in case of fatal errors or application crashes

Outline

The talk will cover the following topics categorized into the given two sections:

1. Error Handling in Node JS

• Importance
• General Mistakes and Patterns
• Mature Approach to Error Logging
• Centralised Error Handling
• Best Practices

2. Alerting Pipeline

• Why to do it → Significance
• How to do it → Choice of technologies, picking the best fit, architect the alerting pipeline

Requirements

Basic understanding of JavaScript and Node JS

Speaker bio

Who am I?

I am a passionate engineer whose expertise range across product development, software infrastructure, IT consultancy, technology training, FOSS evangelism and community management.

• Previous: Product Engineer at jnaapti
• Current: Co-Founder at Kredaro. Also, IT consultant for multiple startups and enterprises such as Jam Factory, You Go Tag, Ambee and Rapido
• Community Presence: Regional Ambassador Lead at Mozilla and Volunteer at FSMK

Why am I excited about it?

I work with a lot of companies and startups on various aspects of product development. My recent engagement with Rapido (Indian Leader for Bike Taxi Service) has been about scaling their product and software infrastructure. One aspect of my work involved working with multiple Node JS applications and services and it was during this time that I had implemented most of the solutions and patterns that I will be discussing in this talk. I have gained some insightful understanding of writing code in JavaScript for large scale products during this journey and I would love to share it with others.

Links

• Source Code: https://github.com/abraarsyed/node-nats
• About Me: http://abraarsyed.me/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/abraarsyed/
• Previous Talk: https://youtu.be/Ho7g6pHxaW0

Slides

https://www.slideshare.net/abraarsyed/error-handling-and-alerting-for-node-js-applications