Node.js Article

Introduction

Node.js is a open source server environment which runs on various platforms (such as Linxus, Unix, Windows, Mac OS X, etc). Node.js also uses JavaScript on the server (and hence has a JavaScript engine).

Node.js was originally written by Ryan Dahl in 2009. By this time there were already many server-side JavaScript environments. Dahl once encountered a problem whilst seeing a file upload on Flickr - The browser did not know how much of the file had been uploaded. This prompted Dahl to first think of the idea of Node.js.

Features

Node.js uses Asynchronous programming - This is also single-threaded and non blocking - Which is very memory efficient. This eliminates the waiting and Node.js simply continues with the next request. The tasks involve: During a file request the task is sent by Node.js to the computer's file system, then Node.js is ready to handle the next request and finally when the file system has opened and read the file, the server returns the content to the client.

Node.js can also do the following: Generating dynamic page content, performing file operations (create, open, read, write, delete, close), collecting form data, perform crud (create, read, update, delete) operations in your database.

A Node.js file contains tasks that will be executed on certain events. A typical event is someone trying to access a port on the server. Node.js files must be initiated on the server before having any effect as well as having the extension ".js".

Pros/Cons

Node.js has its pros and cons:

Pros	Cons
It uses JavaScript (can be OO) - This will be easy for a programmer experienced in Object Oriented Principles to learn.	However, programmers find it hard to use Node.js for high intensive computational tasks.
Open Source runtime environment that supports caching of individual modules.	There is a consistency factor - Many development companies that use Node.js feel that the API keeps changing at frequent intervals.
Concurrent request handling is assisted by the asynchronous event-driven IO.	However this approach to enhance its scalability has a split opinion among developers as many feel that this particular approach is more complicated than the linear blocking I/O programming. This also makes the code messy.
There is a lot of active support in terms of the communities that follow Node.js.	Node.js is not suitable for large and complex web applications as it, at present doesn't support multi-threaded programmings.

Extra Programs

These are the programs and technologies than can be used with Node.js:

Mobile Apps
IDEs (such as MS Visual Studio)
JavaScript (for client side)
Front End Frameworks (such as ReactJS, Vue.js, Angular)
DB Programs that use SQL and no-SQL databases. (such as MongoDB and MySQL)

Summary

In conclusion:

Node.js has a lot of different features to help with creating networking and server-side applications in JS. However the drawbacks can be very frustrating to a developer (such as using Node.js for high end Computational Tasks) so you will need to weigh the pros and cons. Node.js can be used for up to medium intensive, efficient programs.