Leaping into node.js and JavaScript, part deux

Well, I'm making a lot of progress since my post of two weeks ago.  Might be starting to get the hang of this JavaScript and node.js stuff.  First, a few followups from last post.

1. I like WebStorm.  Well worth the small fee for a personal license.  Even just the way it makes Git and GitHub painless is almost worth the price.  And for a relative newbie blundering along it's great.  Especially since a lot of the node.js documentation is a bit sketchy.  Setting breakpoints and looking at fields is wonderful.  My only complaint is that sometimes it gets very very slow.  I'm using version 7.0.  There's a 7.0.1 upgrade available, not sure what it fixes.
2. The SAMs book Teach Yourself node.js in 24 Hours has been pretty useful - much better than many of the "in 24 Hours" books.
3. Professional Node.js: Building JavaScript Based Scalable Software is o.k., but a bit disappointing compared to most of the other WROX books I have read.

A few more resources I have found that seem useful:

1. JavaScript the Definitive Guide is essential.  Get it.
2. Manuel Kiessling is developing a Node Craftsman followup book.  I't still pretty early in development but might be useful. 
3. A free download of JavaScript the Good Parts.  I'm temporarily ignoring some of his advice, but it's still a good reference.
4. Of course, Stackoverflow, within limits.  Many of the responses are very client-HTML-ish (not node.js serverish) and not all are good.  But you can dig to find good information.

Javascript

  I'm coming from 20+ years of Java experience, and my JavaScript shows it.  I put in semicolons.  Looping over arrays I use a for-next with indices, not each().  I'd like to use for (var x in theArray)more, except that stupidly returns all the indices in the array, not all the values.  Sorry, makes no sense for an array, but since JavaScript arrays aren't real I understand whats going on.  But still been burned there several times.  And I still often mistype my loops as for (int i=0; i<....).  Where the "int" should be "var".  Of course, when I go back to programming in Java I'll surely make the opposite mistake.  :-)

  Creating a JavaScript class is fraught with way too much danger.  There are too many ways to do it, all the examples are different, and you can run into religious wars.  Frankly, I think a lot of the people writing have no clue about OOP classes.  I ended up using "classical" style, partly cause it worked well with node's CommonJS module structure to simplify the namespace and export issues, and mainly cause it felt most natural to me.  With more experience this may change.  Classical style uses the .prototype field a lot.  It is well described in JavaScript the Definitive Guide, 6th ed. in section 9.3, "Java-Style Classes in JavaScript".  Example classical style code below:

I'll talk more about working with node.js in future posts...