a few new node modules

people who know me know that i love node.js, the javascript network application framework. most of the projects i've prototyped in the last couple of years have been done with javascript in a browser and node.js on the server. i don't know why it took me so long to think about this, but i'm finally releasing some of the tools i developed. (okay, technically, i re-implemented them to avoid some project specific kruft.)

but anyway, in the last couple of weeks i released two node packages: node-props and node-mug.

node-props.js

node-props is a package that lets developers read properties from one or more URIs specified on the command line. so, basically, you can do this:

node application.js --config file:///etc/host_props.json --config https://example.org/app_props.js

i found the ability to grab properties from multiple locations is good for "cloud-like" applications. i use it to separate "host config" parameters (e.g. - addresses & ports to listen on) from "application config" parameters (like db addresses, etc.)

separating the two classes of config info provides a bit of flexibility if you're deploying an array of servers. by placing application config information on a central server, you only need to change a single file to change your app's behavior.

the package has been published to the npm registry and the source is available at https://github.com/OhMeadhbh/node-props

node-mug.js

the node-mug package exports an interface developers can use to generate RFC 4122 compliant Version 4 (random) UUIDs. unlike some other UUID generators for node, node-mug collects entropy from the /dev/urandom file present on most modern *nix systems. paranoid app developers can configure the system to read entropy from /dev/random.

interested users can install node-mug via npm or retrieving the source from the git repository at https://github.com/OhMeadhbh/node-mug

happy coding!