We Keep Coding

Is there a client+server-side MVC JS framework

I've been working with Node+Express for a while now, and I'd like to start looking for a strong structure for building average to huge web apps, but which could also be used (and not be too much overkill) for simple websites.
I've been taking interest for backbone, but I'm looking for something much more "complete" already. I Know backbone can do everything with the right plugins and by respecting the best practices, but what I'm looking for is something more "strong" as is and from the start, like AngularJS, CanJS or Ember (maybe CanJS is the best compromise between flexibility and conventions althought all of this can be mostly subjective).
Just to be sure to keep into the best practices, even if I must stick to an opinionated FW.
Now, before choosing anything, and because I'll be using Node in the backend, so full JS, I'd like to know if there is a framework which would deliver client+server MVC capabilities, or if I must use Node/Express in the back and something else for the front.
Other info that may be useful, I'd like to code in CoffeeScript/LESS, and keep HTML as is (so no Jade-like stuff). If I'm not asking too much, I'd like to use this technology for all of my projects, which will be targeting also mobile phones, as websites (for sure), and sometimes even as Phonegap-based apps. Maybe this becomes hard (Meteor doesn't support Phonegap for it's client-side part for what I've read, maybe Derby ?).
Also, I must point out that I'm not asking anything subjective like "what is the best between ..." but simply if full client+server MVC JS framework exists, and if yes, which ones meets those needs.

rendr (backbone with server-side support)
meteor (very real-time oriented)

Meteor and DerbyJS seem great but very real-time oriented, I am not going for those.
I think I'll use TowerJS which seems to have really great features (live JS/CSS injection in browser when files updated, live node files reloading without restarting, pre-built development, staging and prod environments, MVC+ORM client+server-side, Redis for temp data and Mongo for DB...).
For Phonegap projects, I'll keep tower server-side and I'll find something else for the client, maybe simple backbone.

Take a look at the ExtJS 4. Also there is Sencha Touch 2 for mobile app development. Both of them has strong support for MVC.

sails.js is the most popular node.js MVC framework nowadays, and has a huge and growing community.
Meteor is also a great tool; my experience with the extjs community is that they are not very welcoming (rtfm noob! type of stuff).

Is Meteor.js stable enough for production?

I was really amazed about's meteor.js features and ease of use, im really falling in love with it. I just wanted to know if you expert guys think it is stable enough for using it in production for a medium sized project.
Thanks for your advice!
Update Nov 2014:
Meteor 1.0 was just released, this is the first ready for production version finally, more on meteor check out this link

6 months with Meteor has the best answer to this question I've found so far.
Here are a few excerpts:
Meteor can’t be used for all real-world apps just yet. Meteor doesn’t have server-side rendering yet, so it’s not ideal for sites that need to load very fast (like e-commerce
sites) or work on underpowered devices (like older mobile phones).
...
So I would say right now Meteor will be a perfect choice for a few apps (anything that strongly depends on real-time interactions), a great choice for most of them, and a very bad one for a few specific cases.
It sounds like Meteor is definitely promising and particularly well-suited for real-time essential web apps, however it's not production ready for all web apps at the moment. At the time of writing this meteor is at version 0.7.0.1.

It's hard to answer this, because use cases vary so much.
I have an in-house application running on Meteor, which is basically a web-based SMS client with address book, fully integrated with our custom, in-house CRM. The Meteor app has 25 simultaneous users, and has been used to send or receive 70,000 SMS messages over the past 5 months, with total downtime measurable in minutes (which was due to network outages, not a problem with the application or framework).
There are definitely missing features, but assuming the features you need are implemented, the framework can be stable enough for production.

Really depends on what you're doing and how many users will connect to it. Using the current version 0.6.x you will need to tweak things that maybe Meteor devs are going to tweak, like MongoDB operations. Also, many packages are going to be released in future that will help a lot some work you are going to build yourself right now (for e.g. the IronRouter that C. Mather is building is very complex to build but very useful if you need complex operations in your app, like subscribing automatically in certain views, building forms etc)

Is Node.js a good alternative to build complete websites?

I'm wondering if using Node.js (express.js) is the best option to go for a complete website. I've been using Rails + Node.js and am wondering if this is still the best option or if I should move completely to Node.js.
Are there websites built completely with node.js? I imagine it must lack many things Rails offers.

I imagine it must lack many things
Rails offers.
I gave a short list below but I would like to know what you could be missing and I think(almost certain) we can give you some alternatives on node.js.
Modules
node.js is getting pretty complete and I think you can run your entire site using only node.js using for example the following modules. I assume you know about npm. If not I really advice you to google for it and learn that. To search npm you can use http://search.npmjs.org:
web framework:
High performance, high class web
development for Node.js
https://github.com/visionmedia/express
Socket.IO aims to make realtime apps possible in every browser and mobile
device, blurring the differences
between the different transport
mechanisms.
https://github.com/learnboost/socket.io-node
I believe with these two web-frameworks you can create a lot of sites. For example express is a very powerfull web framework and supports a lot of cool things like:
session support.
a lot powerful template engines. I like Jade for example. You could also share these between client and server a lot of the times easily.
excellent routing.
just to name a few.
database:
Redis is an open source, advanced
key-value store. It is often referred
to as a data structure server since
keys can contain strings, hashes,
lists, sets and sorted sets.
https://github.com/mranney/node_redis
MongoDB (from "humongous") is a scalable, high-performance, open source,
document-oriented database.
Mongoose is a MongoDB object modeling tool designed to work in an
asychronous environment.
https://github.com/learnboost/mongoose/
With those two databases I think you should be able to accomplish most of your tasks. The nice thing is that Redis is extremely fast/simple advanced KV-store(dataset in memory/also supports VM) and supports replication while Mongodb is more completely(slower then redis) and also supports sharding.
authentication:
Authentication and authorization (password, facebook, & more) for your node.js Connect and Express apps.
https://github.com/bnoguchi/everyauth
Like I said previously you can get a long way with only these modules.

Express.js is more akin to Sinatra. They're simpler frameworks than rails.
Express's list of sites is fairly small http://expressjs.com/applications.html
So I think it's also good to look at Sinatra's list http://www.sinatrarb.com/wild.html
So to answer your questions in reverse order. Yes it lacks all the features of rails. Yes there are sites written completely in Express. And going to 100% Node.js might be the right decision for your site.
It depends on which features you'd miss and what performance you need.

I'm not sure, but I guess it's perfectly possible. I have built complete sites using plain server side javascript for years without problems. The advantage of node.js seems to be its event driven model and things like socket.io. I just started experimenting with it, I'll probably will try porting an existing site to node.js.
Here you can find a large list of sites built with node.js.
Finally, you may want to read: What it’s like building a real website in Node.js

Yes, as of now node.js lacks many (well, at least a few) things rails offers. Eventually the set of available node.js modules will collectively provide good alternatives to RoR across the board. Or at least different (and often more modern) approaches to the same fundamental problems. There are still some important things missing in the node.js ecosystem including a good ORM for postgresql (rails has ActiveRecord which is great) and a good DB schema management subsystem. Both of these do not exist in the node.js ecosystem as of this moment, but surely they will be there in due time. Rails has these down pat right now.
There are some tricks node.js has that RoR doesn't. Debugging in node.js is more seamless than RoR and express.js is more flexible. Express is the library approach (you tell it what to do) whereas rails is the framework approach (you fill out the boilerplate it creates for you). There are also some fantastic things like stylus and jade, which have equivalents in rails, but when you have a full app written in one language (either javascript or CoffeeScript, which I prefer) and everything is in a modern node.js/TJ Holowaychuck style, you get a level of cohesiveness that is really nice to work within.
The other thing to keep in mind is that while the list of available node.js modules is quite impressive, many of them are not as mature and battle-tested as their rails/django analogs. It's hit or miss, so beware.

Need help determining how to approach building my project

I'd like to create something similar to a family tree online app (like geni.com). I'm unsure what languages I should use to build it with. My IT strong points aren't in programming and this project is going to require me to sit down and learn some languages. My problem right now is that I don't know what languages I should use.
So with the idea of a family tree online app in mind here are some of the specifications.
- I do not want to use flash.
- The app needs to be zoomable and scrollable (sort of like google maps)
- The app needs to be able to add content without reloading the page. Perhaps there's a little "+" sign and when I click it, I can add a tag/title/description/picture
- The app needs to be able to save your work for that user to retrieve later on.
- The layout that a user is able to create in is sort of widget based where the user can add a new bubble and then in that bubble they are able to add text or content.
I started programming this with HTML5 canvas and Javascript, but I'm stuck on creating a connection to the database that isn't directly from Javascript (because that seems very insecure to me). But I'm not just stumped on how to interact securely with the database (I don't even have a database picked out), but also I'm concerned that I won't be able to build out the app with just javascript and may need something else like ajax or something but I'm unfamiliar with what each language does nowadays.

If you are starting from scratch, then the best language to use is the one you are most comfortable with. Alternately, if you don't plan to be developing the whole thing yourself and you already have some other interested parties on board then the best language to use is the one that the majority of you are comfortable with. If it's just you and you do not yet have any favorites, then look around and play with a few - it's the only way to find out if you will actually like / be effective with them.
That being said, a few of the more likely candidates these days are:
JavaScript: Long gone are the days when this language was simply a way to put the D in DHTML. These days JavaScript is a viable client and server-side language. (Others here have already recommended Node.js -- I'd also recommend NPM (node package manager) to handle your dependencies). With a little bit of planning you can reuse most of your application code on both the client and the server side. On the downside, most of the server side technology is very new (only a few years old at most) and so you may find yourself implementing tools for use in your application rather than your application itself. Finding servers that support it will also be harder, again on account of it's age.
Perl: At the opposite end of the spectrum of age, we find Perl - the first commonly deployed language used to make web applications it still powers a great variety of useful websites out there (include new ones such as Pinboard.) The tools that are popular on CPAN have been vetted under fire. The good news is that it is not going anywhere anytime soon. The bad news is, you might have to search a little harder to find a module that supports [that newest, baddest thing that just came out yesterday].
PHP: The BASIC (or Perl, depending on who you ask) of the modern web, PHP was designed from the ground up to do one thing - make building dynamic web pages easier. Its popularity means that there is quite a lot of server support (PHP + Apache + MySQL is the Model T Ford of web servers -- everyone can afford one) and an enormous amount of pre-built code available for perusal. However, like BASIC, PHP's strength is also its greatest weakness. Almost anyone can write something that works in PHP ... how well it works depends on who wrote it. The caveat emptor that applies to all code snippets found on the web applies in spades to snippets of code written in PHP.
Python: The language that made programing fun again (at least for those who can see past the significant whitespace and lack of blocks / anonymous functions and overlook < 3.x's issues with non-ASCII out of the box.) It's a general-purpose, flexible and multi-paradigm language with quite a substantial standard library (but without .NET or Java's incredible bloat). In addition, quite a large amount of work has been done in it, so there is a good chance that what you need has been already developed by somebody else. Plus, it can make you fly.
Ruby (with or without Rails): The language that made the web fun, coupled, if you so desire, with the framework that made MVC cool. There is lots of documentation out there, and a great community, with many prebuilt tools (called gems) from which to pick and choose - free and cheap servers are not as common as their PHP counterparts, but they are likely to be of higher quality (when chosen at random).
All that being said, they are all great languages for web development. What matters is not what we think you should use ... but what you are most likely to be effective with. All of the languages listed above are mainstream (or will be in the next two years), easy-to-learn and easy-to-write languages. You cannot go wrong, no matter what you choose to start off with.
Alternately, if you want something a little more difficult, or less mainstream ... I am working with .NET applications at work, and with Lisp (SBCL)-based services in my spare time. I have heard great things about Lua and Java too ... there are at least two C++ web frameworks out there ... and I'm sure that there is somebody is having fun building a web service in COBOL with a FORTRAN backend. ;-)

As someone has already pointed out, you will need to work with a server side language as well. (Ruby, Python, PHP) You are exactly right there you should not be attempting a database connection via javascript in the browser.
You'll need to build out a server side application to handle the basic operations of your application.
I'd strongly recommend reading up on the MVC design pattern, and possibly looking into Ruby on Rails as your backend framework, it plays very nicely with ajax like features, and has a somewhat shorter learning curve, I believe, than some other frameworks / languages.

You will need server side scripts in a language like PHP or Ruby on Rails to interact with a database.

If you're already familiar with HTML5 and JavaScript, may I recommend using Node.JS? It's about the closest you'll get to what you already know with browser development. It can also hook in with database systems which are closer to the HTML5-suggested IndexedDB.
with that in mind...
If you're inexperienced with programming and programming languages, then the app you describe will involve a pretty big learning curve. While Flash and Flex have really nice interfaces to build apps with click-and-drag, the tools for HTML5 are much less mature.
That's not saying it's not possible with HTML5. Just that there's still some time to wait before people create tools to bring the app building process closer to what Adobe provides.

What are the implications of node.js?

I've been reading about node.js lately. I've seen many articles about how it's really great and all from some prominent people. Given the inertia that this project seems to have, and that I am currently learning javascript and jQuery, the project has gotten my attention. I get that many people are excited about it, but I don't quite understand what the implications are.
I understand that it is event driven and non-blocking and all of that, but where I'm confused is in regards to its intent.
Does node.js mean that we now have a foundation to run Javascript on the server-side, so that later maybe someone will create the Ruby on Rails or ASP.NET MVC equivalent for node.js/Javascript? Perhaps there already are web frameworks out there, but if so I haven't heard the hype machine yet.
I hope my question is clear.

I think the major implications are two-fold: huge performance and scalability gains, and the possibility of creating web applications where two or more people may work on the same web application at the same time, watching what the others are doing, in real-time. This latter one not only has big implications for web-based gaming, but also collaboration tools, etc.
It would appear that node.js is exactly what the real-time web needs. For that kind of thing, be sure to also checkout Socket.IO, which achieves cross-browser HTML5 web sockets. Combined with node.js, this makes for an incredible platform.
Check out what was made at the node.js knockout for some examples of what can be done.

I think what you can hope for is going to be more like twisted for Python, rather than e.g. rails for Ruby -- a rich, powerful framework, but still one requiring skill and care to use properly, because asynchronous programming is always like that... it's the price you pay for its absolutely awesome performance potential.
There are and have been Javascript server-side frameworks, but with server-side Javascript never being a really popular option, such frameworks never got the "critical mass" of support and enthusiasm that, say, jQuery has, or rails for ruby on the server side of things.
I doubt async programming (with its subtleness and difficulty) will be the defining trigger for a "mass movement" (hey, I hope I'm wrong, but I see e.g. the relative popularity for Python of Django, with none of the awesome performance, compared with Twisted, with _all_ the awesome performance... but the intrinsic difficulty too!-).
OTOH other developments (such as, simply, the wide availability of powerful, high performing, solid Javascript engines like V8) are more likely to eventually result in wide availability of (non-async;-) server-side Javascript choices, and as a consequence the possibility of the development (or porting -- e.g., a framework like dojo could already offer a lot to a JS server-side app, only parts of it are actually client-side) of powerful, simple, and therefore eventually popular framework. Nevertheless, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that either...

Node.js is an application server, not yet another webapp server. As the article says, it saves you the trouble of writing the event loop and using two languages to write apps (python/java/ruby/php backend, js frontend). As it is based in the V8 Engine by Google it's really fast and has a low memory footprint.
There's a web service framework called GeddyJS, and Node.js comes with a set of libraries for IO, database and math. It's also possible to extend it with addons, though last time I checked documentation was still a little rough on that.

There is a node framework called bogart which you can easily use the MVC pattern and mustache or common-ejs for templating.
http://github.com/nrstott/bogart