Project Development Setup
Make sure you have a local instance of MongoDB running at the default port of 27017.
# Install project dependencies
npm i
# Run automated test scripts
npm run test
# Start up project server
npm run startHow are you making the URLs shorter
I am generating a URL safe string to map shorter links to their true origins in a table set up which enables me to search through it in a short set of time.
Why Express (Server Framework)
Express is the server framework I am most comfortable working with daily, it is stable and contains a lot of nice modules for hosting static files and endpoints.
Why Mongo? (Database)
I wanted to store URL mappings as key pair values in-memory but also wanted to maintain a basic persistence layer for reliability as a long-standing service. Since Mongo can run as an in-memory Database and is MultiCored it's great for the Job. I would have used Redis with backups for sheer performance but it just does not support MapReduce.
Why Mocha and Chai (Testing Framework)
I am comfortable with Chai since I use it quite a bit and run Chai tests atop of Mocha.