Begin to Code

Become a cloud developer — and have fun doing it!

This full-color guide will help you start creating cloud-based apps and games fast, even if you’ve never done it before. Not just friendly and easy, it puts you in control of your own learning and empowers you to solve problems you care about. Microsoft and author Rob Miles have reinvented the introductory tutorial, reflecting deep research into how newcomers learn. Begin to Code is packed with innovations, from debugging challenges to step-by-step Make Something Happen exercises replicated as YouTube videos linked directly from the book. Miles puts code in context, showing how modern cloud applications are deployed and run, how their elements combine into working systems, and how key cloud technologies help you address security, reliability, and scalability. Easy, friendly, and you’re in control!

Learn how to…

• Recognize what’s unique about cloud-based software and why JavaScript is ideal for developing them
• Move JavaScript code onto the cloud, and add programmed behavior to web pages
• Create active sites and generate dynamic web content
• Use the Node.js framework to write programs that run on servers and respond to browser requests
• Build shared applications that use services and JSON data transfer
• Host and optimize shared game experiences in the cloud
• Consider ethical and privacy issues as you design new cloud apps and services
• Streamline and improve cloud development with Express Framework, node package manager, and Git
• Use professional techniques to deliver reliable, secure, and well performing solutions
• Build cloud-hosted programs that interact with file stores and databases
• Configure and deploy a working application, step by step
• Get started with cloud-based Internet of Things (IoT) development

About This Book

• For beginners who’ve never written code for the cloud
• For anyone who’s been frustrated with other beginning programming books or courses
• For people who’ve started out in other environments and now want to code for the cloud

Table of Contents

Part 1: The cloud

1 Code and the cloud

2 Get into the cloud

3 Make an active site

4 Host a website

Part 2: Make a cloud-based application

5 Build a shared application

6 Create a shared experience

7 Design an application

8 Build an application

9 Turn professional

Part 3: Building with cloud technologies

10 Store data

11 Activity tracking and sessions

12 JavaScript technologies

About the Author

Rob Miles spent more than 30 years teaching programming at the University of Hull in the United Kingdom. He’s a Microsoft MVP with a passion for programming and creating new things. He runs a tiny company promoting the use of software and devices in the community and loves building things and putting code into them. He reckons that programming is the most creative thing you can learn how to do. He claims to know a lot of really good jokes, but nobody has ever heard him tell one. If you want an insight into the Wacky World™ of Rob Miles, you can read his blog at www.robmiles.com and follow him on Twitter as @RobMiles.