Hackathons are great for developers who want to collaborate on their software projects, but getting a good project up and running can take some time. Getting everything from picking a programming language down to creating a repository or website for the code and project itself is a lot for one person to handle.
Sahat Yalkabov, a Full Stack/JavaScript developer, said that he attended many hackathons, and he understands how difficult it can be to start a project, so he wanted to provide other hackathoners a learning guide for their own projects, focusing on simplicity and ease of use. His boilerplate for Node.js web applications, called Hackathon Starter, is this week’s GitHub project of the week.
The best way to get started is to clone the repository, according to his GitHub page. There’s a long list of features, including local authentication using e-mail and password, account management, API examples, Bootstrap 3 and themes, Node.js cluster support, and more.
Prerequisites include MongoDB, Node.js 6.0+, and command-line tools. Those who are new to Node or Express, Yalkabov suggests watching the Node.js and Express 101 screencast by Alex Ford, as it teaches how to use Node and Express from scratch.
Top 5 projects trending on GitHub this week
#1. PokémonGo Map: Live visualization of all the Pokémon in your area. Quick there’s a Weedle!
#2. Hyperterm: A JavaScript/HTML/CSS Terminal.
#3. m-cli: Swiss Army Knife for macOS.
#4. Lepton: A tool and file format for losslessly compressing JPEGs by an average of 22%.
#5. API Guidelines: Microsoft API Guidelines.
