Learning Node

Preface

Not Your Ordinary JavaScript

You picked the perfect time to learn Node.

The technology evolving around Node is still young and vibrant, with interesting new variations and twists popping up on a regular basis. At the same time, the technology has reached a level of maturity that assures you your time learning Node will be well spent: installation has never been easier, even on Windows; the “best of breed” modules are beginning to surface from the seeming hundreds available for use; the infrastructure is becoming robust enough for production use.

There are two important things to keep in mind when you work with Node. The first is that it is based in JavaScript, more or less the same JavaScript you’re used to working with in client-side development. True, you can use another language variation, such as CoffeeScript, but JavaScript is the lingua franca of the technology.

The second important thing to remember is that Node isn’t your ordinary JavaScript. This is server-side technology, which means some of the functionality—and safeguards—you’ve come to expect in your browser environment just won’t be there, and all sorts of new and potentially very unfamiliar capabilities will.

Of course, if Node were like JavaScript in the browser, what fun would that be?

Why Node?

If you explore the source code for Node, you’ll find the source code for Google’s V8, the JavaScript (technically, ECMAScript) engine that’s also at the core of Google’s Chrome browser. One advantage to Node.js, then, is ...