Everything you should need to know about Node JS
Node.js (Node) is an open-source development platform for executing JavaScript code server-side. Node is useful for developing applications that require a persistent connection from the browser to the server and is often used for real-time applications such as chat, news feeds and web push notifications.
In simple terms, what this means is that entire sites can be run using a unified ‘stack’, which makes development and maintenance quick and easy, allowing you to focus on meeting the business goals of the project.
The fact that Node.js is open source means that it is free to use and constantly being tweaked and improved by a global community of developers.
An important thing to understand about Node.js is that it is neither a framework nor a library - as with traditional application software - but a runtime environment. A runtime environment (sometimes shortened to RTE) contains Web API’s that a developer can access to build a code and a JavaScript engine that parses that code. This makes it lightweight, flexible and easy to deploy, all features that will help to optimize and speed up your application project.Node. js is well suited for applications that have a lot of concurrent connections and each request only needs very few CPU cycles, because the event loop (with all the other clients) is blocked during the execution of a function.
Who uses Node.js?
Currently, it is used by almost EVERYONE! To name a few, it is used by big companies like:
Yahoo!
PayPal
Netflix
Medium
LinkedIn
When should you use Node.js?
Data streaming - because of its asynchronous nature it's very good for handling real-time data streaming. It can be used to stream media, data from multiple sources, file upload or it's great for Websockets server;
API server - because it can handle many connections at once, it's well suited for an API service. The JSON format is used naturally by Javascript, therefore you can easily convert Javascript Objects into JSON format;
Microservices – Node.js is well suited to act as a microservices server. Because it's fast and lightweight it can be used for writing microservices for example - API gateway.
History of Node Js -
Node. js was written initially by Ryan Dahl in 2009, about thirteen years after the introduction of the first server-side JavaScript environment, Netscape's LiveWire Pro Web. The initial release supported only Linux and Mac OS X. Its development and maintenance was led by Dahl and later sponsored by Joyent.
Is Node Js demanded in 2021?
Node.js development has become very popular over the last four years and continues to stand the competition in 2021 making startups worldwide choose it over other available options. Node js is still relevant in 2021. Node. js is as relevant as ever and worth learning, especially if you are a JavaScript developer. Being a JavaScript developer gives you a headstart since you already know the language used in Node. Moreover, if you are a Front-end Developer, you can transition and become a Full-stack Developer by learning Node.
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