Sails.js makes it easy to build custom, enterprise-grade Node.js apps. It is designed to resemble the MVC architecture from frameworks like Ruby on Rails, but with support for the more modern, data-oriented style of web app development. It's especially good for building realtime features like chat.

1. sails.js
realtime MVC framework for Node.js

2. who am i?
@mikermcneil

3. Design and develop javascript apps for
enterprise and startup customers
i have a startup called balderdash

4. Realtime used to
be kind of hard
XMPP
Comet
Reverse AJAX
Long polling
Flash sockets
WebSockets
Server-sent events

5. love at first sight
circa 2011
Node.js...

6. A lot easier now

7. Can we use Node.js for,
like, everything?
i wondered...

8. Can we use Node.js for,
like, everything?
i wondered...
maybe.

9. Lots
of different
kinds of
projects
There weren’t really any simple
and reproducible patterns for
structuring complicated Node.js
aplications top to bottom

10. Lots
of different
kinds of
projects
There weren’t really any simple
and reproducible patterns for
structuring complicated Node.js
aplications top to bottom
Could be working with an
existing client, or writing a new
client for a mobile web browser,
an automobile, a toaster, or god
knows what

11. Lots
of different
kinds of
projects
There weren’t really any simple
and reproducible patterns for
structuring complicated Node.js
aplications top to bottom
Could be working with an
existing client, or writing a new
client for a mobile web browser,
an automobile, a toaster, or god
knows what
Lots of different 3rd party
proprietary services to deal with
on the back-end -- there was no
standard way to integrate new
systems

12. Programming
realtime apps
was still not
trivial.
Socket.io and Express
messages/requests have to be
handled independently, which
leads to separate code bases for
realtime and traditional server
code.

13. Programming
realtime apps
was still not
trivial.
Socket.io and Express
messages/requests have to be
handled independently, which
leads to separate code bases for
realtime and traditional server
code.
Socket programming is a new
paradigm for many modern web
developers

14. Socket.io and Express
messages/requests have to be
handled independently, which
leads to separate code bases for
realtime and traditional server
code.
Socket programming is a new
paradigm for many modern web
developers
Questions about scalability
Programming
realtime apps
was still not
trivial.

15. Express wasn’t
“structured
enough”
Authentication has to be rolled
from scratch

16. Express wasn’t
“structured
enough”
Authentication has to be rolled
from scratch
No standard,
implementation-agnostic method
of working with datastores

17. Express wasn’t
“structured
enough”
Authentication has to be rolled
from scratch
No standard,
implementation-agnostic method
of working with datastores
Low level and free-form -- not a
lot of guidelines for teams used
to convention-over-configuration
frameworks

18. too bad.
we went with Node anyway.

19. so Sails.js was born

20. MVC structure
Sails.js is modeled after the same
convetion-over-configuration philosophy
you’re used to from frameworks like Rails,
Grails, Symfony, and Zend.
Controllers are just Express middleware
Views are ejs by default, but you can use
jade, etc. We rarely use them since we’re
normally making single page apps with
client-side templates.

21. Lightweight ORM
Kept querying semantics dead-simple and
adapter-agnostic whenever possible
Pulled the best of Active Record,
Hibernate, and Mongoose
Made it easy to add purpose-built adapters
at the app level

22. Policies
Policies are just more Express middleware
They can be chained together to “protect”
or preprocess requests for controllers
E.g. access control, storage quotas, or
anything else you’d want to use
middleware for

24. Socket.io Express
interpreter
Translated incoming socket.io messages into
Express requests
Translated res.send(), res.json(), and res.view()
to respond via the socket, as well as allowing
for streams
Added res.broadcast() and req.join() methods
for pubsub
Normalized configuration

26. Blueprints
Instead of something like Rails HTML
scaffolds, by default, when you generate a
model and controller, Sails serves an API
Built-in search, sort, pagination, and
complex queries
Authentication/access control can be built
on top using policies

27. Other
cool
stuff
CLI tool
REPL
Custom adapters
Optional server-side coffee
support
Automatic asset bundling (LESS
and coffeescript files are
compiled, merged with css and js,
and injected into the DOM,
minified in production mode)

30. let’s code things now
OK

31. Community is growing (1900 stars, 160 forks
on github, active IRC channel and Google
group)
CURRENT STATUS (V0.8.9)

32. Community is growing (1900 stars, 160 forks
on github, active IRC channel and Google
group)
My company and most of our customers are
using Sails in production
CURRENT STATUS (V0.8.9)

33. Community is growing (1900 stars, 160 forks
on github, active IRC channel and Google
group)
My company and most of our customers are
using Sails in production
Oldest running production Sails app has
been up for over 300 days
CURRENT STATUS (V0.8.9)

34. Roadmap
More adapters
More modularization to allow for
a la carte usage of framework
components
Grunt/Yeoman integration for
asset management and app
generation
Built-in support for associations
in ORM

35. Contribute to an adapter
Want to get involved?

36. Contribute to an adapter
Work on the yeoman/grunt
integration
Want to get involved?

37. Contribute to an adapter
Work on the yeoman/grunt
integration
Play with Sails and come up with
more cool shit
Want to get involved?

38. Questions?

39. Special thanks to:
@colinwren
@dcbartlett
@particlebanana
@tedkulp
Irl Nathan
Troy & NodePDX
Dan Dwyer & Joyent
& all the other excellent Sails.js contributors

40. Thanks!
@mikermcneil
mike@balderdash.co