Node js Tutorial

Node js Introduction

We all know the popularity of Javascript. Javascript is lightweight, interpreted and object oriented language, but this is limited to the client side only.

Node.js is built on Google Chrome's Javascript V8 engine for creating server side applications.
It is an open source, cross-platform runtime environment for creating server side and networking applications. It follows single thread with event loop that support multiple concurrent connections. It never waits for an API to return data and move to next API and through callback, node.js helps the server to respond the previous API call.

If you are interested in creating applications that have many users, deal with networked data, or have real-time work, then Node.js is a great tool for the job.

File Extension

It has the same file extension as Javascript has, i.e .js

OS Support

This can be run on Linux, Mac OS X, SunOS and Microsoft Windows with the 32-bit and 64-bit processor.

Release

Node.js was developed by Ryan Dahl in 2009.

Corporate Users of Node.js

Godaddy, Groupon, IBM, Linkedin, Paypal, Yahoo


Important features of Node.js -

  1. Node.js is asynchronous (non-blocking), event driven framework for developing fast web applications in javascript.
  2. It has a rich collection of modules to handle various core functionality, which helps to reduce complexity of writing applications. Like - It provides module for data streams, file streams, networking, cryptography etc.
  3. It is built on Google Chrome V8 engine and extremely fast to use.
  4. As it provides Non-blocking I/O, various commands execute in parallel.
  5. It is perfect for real time applications.
  6. Node.js is an open source, so it is free to use.
  7. It is rich in the built-in api, which help to create different types of server applications easily.