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SERVER - only seeds db with new articles from HackerNews, no front end or express framework

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*** Please note...this is the standalone server only. This only grabs data from the HackerNews API and scrapes the individual website for data. That data is then stored in the mongodb where it is accessible by the Coder News full stack app to use and display using the React front end and node.js backend.


Coder News

Coder News is a responsive full-stack application that allows users to read the latest articles about the most popular programming languages. The app uses the HackerNews API to find the articles before individually scraping each articles website to provide enough data to display on the app's React front end.

Introduction

Coder News was designed to be a simple way to read articles about the most popular programming languages. It starts with scouring Hacker News for news related to the top six programming topics, including Javascript, React/Redux and Angular. Coder News follows the links and scrapes the data for you. What you are left with is an easy to read collection of articles to read without ever needing to leave the site. If you want to tell the rest of the world about a specific article, you can log into Twitter and Tweet away!

How it Works

Automated Data Gathering

Coder News uses a seperate server which runs a search every 15 minutes using the HackerNews API to gather the most recent articles posted about 6 different programming languages: JavaScript, React/Redux, Perl, Python, Ruby, and Angular. Using the links found in the articles, the server then attempts to individually scrape each website seperately and stores that information in a database keeping enough data to fill out the apps front end.

Choosing a topic

Once logged into the app, users are able to choose from one of the six different topics and are presented with a list of cards showing the relevant data gathered from each website, including a image if one was available, the articles headline, date it was posted on HackerNews, a small introduction to the article, as well as an approximate time it should take to read the full story using a formula of total words divided by typical words per minute reading speed.

Viewing the full article

If the user chooses to view the full article, they can click on the "Open Article" button on each card and a modal will open which contains an iframe element which displays the article's full website.

Tweeting

If the user wishes to share the article, they can click on the Twitter button on the bottom of each modal which will allow them to use their connected twitter account to send out a tweet. The subject of the tweet is already prefilled with the articles link and a relevant hashtag, but the user is free to change or add to this to provide more information should they choose.

Seperate (always-on) Server

  • Node.js + Express.js (web server)
  • MongoDB (database)

Responsive

  • The app is fully responsive and quickly adapts to all mobile, tablet, and desktop viewports.

Security

  • Coder News connects to the Firebase SDK to carry out the sign-in flow, enabling users to connect to their Twitter accounts to share any articles they enjoy.

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SERVER - only seeds db with new articles from HackerNews, no front end or express framework

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