Chapter 5

Node.js Tutorial

Node.js is a back-end JavaScript runtime environment that runs JavaScript code outside the browser.

Node.js Features:

• Non-blocking I/O: makes it lightweight and efficient
• Fast JS engine: V8 Javascript engine
• Expressive and interpreted language: don’t waste time on setup
• Solid and improving language standard (ECMAScript)
• Built-in package manager with a humongous number of packages (npm)

Benefits of Node.js:

• Light, scalable, and efficient
• Non-blocking, event-driven servers
• Same language on front end & back end
• Ability to re-use code on the browser and server

What you should know first

• JavaScript Fundamentals (Arrays, Objects, Arrow functions, etc.)
• Callbacks, Promises, Async-await
• JSON
• HTTP
• MVC Pattern