What is Node.js?
Node.js is an asynchronous event-driven JavaScript runtime environment built on Chrome’s V8 JavaScript engine. It is free and open-sourced. It is cross-platform server-side runtime that executes JavaScript code outside of the web-browser. Until Node.js developers were using back-end languages like ASP & PHP to develop server-side codes and Javascript was used only on the front-end. Node.js provides modules for handling file system I/O and networking tools built on Javascript.
- Node.js is free and open source platform.
- Built using Javascript
- Server-side environment, runs Javascript code at back-end
- Supports different platforms: Linux, Unix, Windows, MacOS.
- Asynchronous
- Built on Chrome’s V8 Javascript engine.
- Javascript Everywhere.
Features of Node.js:
Event-Driven modules: All modules in Node.js are based on event-driven programming. Developers can create scalable servers without using threading, by using a simplified model of event-driven programming that uses callbacks to signal the completion of a task.
Asynchronous: All modules of Node.js are asynchronous. Node.js functions are non-blocking and uses callbacks to signal completion or failure of a task.
Easy Scalability: Scalability is one of the many benefits of using Node.js. You can start using a lightweight and fast setup of start with your development and initial app releases, and scale up the system later. It supports both vertical and horizontal scaling. You can add more modules to your existing app easily.
High Performance: Node.js is built on Google’s V8 Javascript engine, which is known its performance. It complies Javascript code directly into machine code, making it easier and faster to implement the code. All the modules are asynchronous and non-blocking.
Free and Open Source: Node.js is open-source server-side javascript environment licensed under MIT License.
In the next section we will see How to set-up Node.js environment on Windows machine and other OS.