The world is raving about Node.js. It is increasingly being used for traditional websites and API applications. Extremely popular, it uses the JavaScript as their main application to create new applications. Additionally, JavaScript is the only choice for web applications in the web browser. It has a wonderfully strong and robust Framework that endears itself to all developers. A typical example of a User is the Netflix. Netflix is the world’s leading Internet television network with over 117 Million users on April 19, 2018. Huge amounts of A/B testing are used to provide an unbeatable experience for the users, who just love its high capacity data-driven platform. This is a micro portrait of the JavaScript environment package Node.js explained.
What is Node.js
Node.js is a Server Environment which is Open Source. It is free, utilizes JavaScript and works easily on an array of platforms, like Mac OS X, Linux, UNIX, and Windows. Node.js uses asynchronous programming. A simple daily task could be something like opening a server file and returning it to the client. This file request would be handled by ASP or PHP as follows:
- It propels the tasks to the computer’s file system.
- Allows the system to wait until the file is opened and read.
- The content is sent easily to the Client.
- It then readies itself to take care of the upcoming requests.
But Node.js manages the file request differently, as follows:
- Node.js can hurl the task to computers file system.
- Node.js readies to get a hold of the subsequent request.
- The server returns the content instantly to the client after opening and reading the files.
It must be noted that Node.js completely diminishes the wait period and takes on the next requests. Its speed of operation has to be seen to be believed. Node.js runs as asynchronously programming, non-blocking, and single threaded, making it supremely memory efficient. Node.js files have the ability to execute different level of events at ease. Ideally, ones that try to look p for port access on the server. But Node.js files are required to be kicked off on the server. Node.js files have extensions ‘.js’. But there are several tasks that node.js can perform, and some of these are:
- Collection of form data.
- Perform all actions on the server – opening, creating, reading, writing, deleting and closing files.
- Addition, deletion, and modifying data in the database.
- Creating a dynamic page content.
How It Works
Node.js is an Open Source development platform for executing JavaScript code Server-side. It is useful for developing applications which require a persistent connection from the browser to the server. It is often used for Real-time applications, such as, news feeds, web push notifications, and chat. It is even used by dating sites and applications such as the prominent UK sex site MNFUK amont others. For the beginner, Node.js is an environment built on Chrome’s V8 JavaScript Engine. The JavaScript is the only language that Node.js supports naturally, but several compile-to-JS languages are available. Due to this, Node.js applications can be written in ClojureScript, Dart, TypeScript, CoffeeScript and many others.
Special Features
Some of the best features of Node.js are discussed below:
- Framework: Node.js is still extremely popular. Its relevance in the market is because of its clear increase in productivity. Node.js, working on JavaScript, has become a full stack development language. Several others like React, Angular and Vue are Front-end Frameworks/Libraries, but Node.js is the only JavaScript based Back-end Framework.
- Security: A Node.js core is fully secure. But a problem exists with installation of third-party packages. The way these are configured, installed and deployed may require additional security to protect web applications from the hacker.
- Multi-threading: JavaScript code executed by Node.js runs practically in a single thread. But Node.js itself is multi-threaded. It’s I/O and other such operations run from a Thread Pool. And because of this, a kind of multi-threading with C++ and native Node.js C++ Development can be achieved.
- Node.js Vs PHP: Some programmers prefer PHP because it is easier to learn than Node.js, and features an integrated Database. But Node.js is far more extensive than PHP. Node.js is also blindingly faster compared to PHP, and these two features often make Node.js the first choice.
- Use: Node.js uses an event-driven, non-blocking I/O model, that make sit light-weight and efficient, perfect for Data-intensive, Real-time applications that run across distributed devices.
- Scalability: Node.js offers easy scalability.
- Performance: Node.js is known for high performance.
- Support: Node.js has the support of a large and active community.
- Ubiquity: In the past, it was notoriously common to see Java Code, like, Enterprise Java Beans (EJB) or Servlets, in the Server-side and JavaScript running in the browser. Now, Node.js runs on the sides, Client and Server, and same Source Code running. Basically, the code is written once only, and then it can be run on both sides. This is called ‘Ubiquity’.
- Node Package Manager (NPM): NPM is the root of almost all deployment systems for Node.js, and underlies the many PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service) providers for Node.js. Its simple and dependable package management has supported the Node Ecosystem grow spectacularly in recent history.
The Future of Node.js
Node.js has the fastest runtime among all programming languages, thanks to the dominant language and also the support and assistance by the major browsers. The future appears to be challenging and strikingly brilliant for Node.js in the front-end world, as it seems like no front-end improvement is possible without Node.js. Development with Node.js lives up to its high reputation as the new standard for Enterprise Applications. Some experts and top drawer developers are even beginning to claim that it is so powerful, that it has the potential to replace Java for good. This would dethrone Java as the most trusted language, which is a spot that Java has held since 1995. For example, recently PayPal transferred all apps from Java to Node.js, for which the main reason is the ability of Node.js to iterate rapidly.
Below is a crash course. While lengthy, it will get you completely up to speed.
