acm.mines.edu

Source code for the acm.mines.edu website.

Setup

Once the repository is cloned, install all dependencies using npm:

cd acm-site
npm install

Next, make your environment file. A sample one is provided: cp .env.sample .env

The .env file should specify Google the client ID + secret for the OAuth2 hook, as well as a PostgreSQL database link.

Docker Setup (Experimental)

Alternatively, you can follow these steps to run with Docker. First, ensure HOST in the DB_URL in .env is set to db, instead of localhost.

Then, navigate to the server directory and run the following commands:

docker compose build
docker compose up -d

Design Choices

Given that this is intended to be continuously maintained by students in the future, I (Ethan Richards) as the original architect would like to explain some of my decisions with this project. These aren't the "be all end all" choices and can be changed, but for maintainability purposes, I think this will help.

1. PostgreSQL over MongoDB: Traditionally, Node.js projects with ExpressJS use MongoDB. However, there is a realistic case for a relational database given that we have users and meetings that are related to surveys, and hence SQL is a good idea. Our old site ran on PostgreSQL, so we decided to use Postgres.

2. JavaScript as a backend: This was one of the hardest choices, as I had considered Flask and other frameworks. However, I think that Node.js with ExpressJS is a good way to get people out of their comfort zones and learning about web development (and I had the most experience in this, for timeframe purposes).

3. Plain old HTML and CSS on the frontend: Even before the site was done, I was asked why not use Angular/React or other client side frontend frameworks. I think HTML + CSS is again better for beginners as well and just allowed for a quicker turnaround for the project. The good thing is that this can always be converted into a frontend framework as desired.

4. Google OAuth2 Authentication: Originally we had considered linking in with Mines's SSO/SAML auth systems (Okta or Shibboleth), but acquiring a certificate for these could take a long time. For now, we're simply hooking into mines@edu Google accounts, since all students are provided with one.