Learn to become a Node.js developer

 

Do you want to learn Node.js but wondering where to start? This is the first question that comes to mind when we want to learn new technology. 

Today, we bring you the Node.JS Roadmap, a comprehensive list of helpful resources & Node Js. tutorials that you can follow to get up and running with Node.JS.

If you are a newbie or intermediate Node.JS developer, this article contains the best resources to learn Node.js for you.

To understand what Node.js is, you don’t have to be a great web programmer. But you need to have a basic understanding of programming environments. 

What you need are the most common languages ​​since Node.js is based on Javascript (hence the .js extension of your name).

As we anticipated in our post on the most used programming languages or the programming languages we should learn. Javascript is an interpreted language that is read and translated line by line at the same time the program is executed.

This language is used from the browser or client. But what if we needed to use Javascript on the server-side? That is when Node.js comes into operation, which has become one of the most used tools for web development today.

Node.js is a platform based on the Chrome JavaScript runtime that can easily build fast and scalable web applications. 

Node.js uses an event-driven non-blocking I / O model, which is lightweight and efficient. It can seamlessly process data of all time and run on different devices.

People Also Ask

• Is it worth learning node JS in 2024?
• Is node js in demand 2024?
• Does node js have a future?
• How do I learn the node JS roadmap?

What is Node.js?

Node.js can be defined as an open-source, cross-platform, dynamic JavaScript runtime framework or environment that is based on the Google Chrome JavaScript V8 engine. Developed by Ryan Dahl in 2009, Node.js was initially implemented as a client-side scripting language. 

Today, it is used to run JavaScript code and scripts that run on the server-side to create dynamic web pages. The latest version of Node.js is 10.10.0.

If we could easily summarize what Node.js is, we could say that it is an open-source environment (Open Source), cross-platform and that it executes the Javascript code outside of a browser. And it is precisely the need to run this language on the server-side that makes Node.js.

In more technical terms, we can define it as a Javascript execution environment that is oriented to asynchronous events (the events do not depend on others having been previously executed) and that can build scalable network applications.

The term scalability refers to the ability of Node.js to make many connections simultaneously without having to read the code line by line or open multiple processes.

The fundamental objective of this “merger” is (among others) to load the dynamic content of the web pages before the page is sent to the user’s browser. In this way, a more efficient load is produced and its visualization is expedited.

And yet, Node.js is not just that, since it serves a multitude of things as we will see later.

Who Uses Node.js?

Node.js was created by the original JavaScript developers with the idea of ​​being able to run this language outside of the browser environment.

 For this, they used Chrome’s V8 engine. This engine makes Javascript become machine code (simpler) by making it faster and ignoring compilation. Therefore Node.js not only allows you to create interactive websites but also makes them more agile and capable of working with other sequence languages ​​such as Python. 

This makes developers use it especially in network applications that seek to be fast or in large projects where processes need to be agile, such as the development of APIs, web applications with Ajax, push messaging and, above all, everything, the Internet of things.

On the contrary, it is not suitable if we need to create applications that require a small number of connections with large consumption of resources (for example, calculations or data processing).

Advantages of Node.js

Among the possibilities of Node.js we find some advantages of this system.

• Node.js is based on the Javascript language, so there is no need to learn a new language separately, which lowers the learning threshold. At the same time, Javascript language is very important in web front-end development, especially HTML5 applications need to be used, so the unified front-end and back-end language can not only realize the full development of programmers but also to unify the public class library and standardize the code. This alone, Node.js has won the favor of the market.

• Node.js did not redevelop the runtime environment but chose the faster V8 browser kernel as the runtime to ensure Nodej’s performance and stability.

• Node.js development is very efficient, and the code is simple, which prides itself on Node.js single-threaded mechanism. Another feature of Node.js is asynchronous programming, which gives Node.js obvious advantages in handling IO-intensive applications. Personally, we think that Node.js is 10 times more efficient than Java for web development and simpler than PHP code.

• The Node.js community is growing. Not only is the number of packages increasing rapidly, but the quality of packages is also significantly better than in other languages. Many bright star packages are simple and clever, designed for the usage habits of developers. The toolkits we use the most, such as socket.io, moment.js, underscore.js, async.js, express.js, bower.js, grunt.js, forever.js …, are really changing my habits of previous programming.

Of course, in addition to my reasons for using Node.js, many companies also have their own reasons for using.

Node.js – Features and Benefits

Most web developers implement Node.js due to its amazing and powerful features. Some of the features of Node.js are:

• Faster code execution
• Highly scalable
• Non-blocking API
• No buffer

With these wonderful features, Node.js is widely used for building server-side and network applications. The following are the main areas where Node.js is widely used:

• I / O related applications
• Data transmission applications
• Real-time data-intensive applications (DIRT)
• JSON API-based applications
• Single-page apps

There are many companies using Node.js these days, such as eBay, General Electric, GoDaddy, Microsoft, PayPal, Uber, Wikipins, Yahoo !, IBM, Groupon, LinkedIn, Netflix, and many others.

Why did eBay Choose Node.js ?

It can be summarized in the following 4 points:

• Dynamic language: development efficiency is very high and the ability to build complex systems, such as ql.io.
• I / O performance and load: Node.js solves the I / O intensive problem very well, via asynchronous I / O.
• Connection memory overhead: Each Node.js process can support more than 120,000 active connections, and each connection consumes approximately 2K of memory.
• Operational: a Node.js monitoring system is implemented for the memory stack.

Areas Where Node.js is Not Suitable

Every language or platform has areas that are not good. For Node.js, the areas that are worst are CPU and memory programming.

1. For computationally intensive applications, it is estimated that it is impossible to win with Javascript and C to fight for computational performance.
2. Memory control, it is difficult to make Javascript and Java more complex data type definitions. Because object-oriented JavaScript is based on JSON, and Java directly uses the structure of memory. So through the process of JSON serialization and deserialization to control memory, Javascript has lost.
3. For large memory applications, due to the memory design limitations of the V8 engine, the maximum heap in a 32-bit environment is 1G, and the maximum heap in a 64-bit environment is also less than 2G. If you want to read 10G data at once, it is impossible for Node.js Done
4. Static server, although the advantages of Node.js are in IO-intensive applications, there is still a big gap from Nginx in the handling of static resources.
5. Applications that do not require asynchronous: such as system administration, auto-script, etc., or Python is more convenient, the asynchronous call of Node.js can bring some problems to programming.

Node.js Application Scenarios

We have a preliminary understanding of Node.js and then we look at the Node.js application scenarios.

1. Web development: Express + EJS + Mongoose / MySQL

Express It is a lightweight and flexible Node.js web application framework, which can build websites quickly. The Express framework is based on Node.js built-in HTTP module and repackages the HTTP module so that the actual web request processing function.

Node.js is an embedded Javascript template engine that generates HTML code through compilation.

mongoose This is the MongoDB object model tool. Through the Mongoose framework, you can perform operations to access MongoDB.

MySQL It is a communication API to connect to the MySQL database, which can be used to access MySQL.

Usually, Node.js is used for web development, which requires 3 frameworks to work together, just like SSH in Java.

2. REST Development: Restify

Restify It is a Node.js based REST application framework, which supports both server and client. Restify is more focused on REST services than express, eliminating the template, render, and other functions in express while strengthening the use of the REST protocol, version support, and HTTP exception handling.

3. Web Chat Room (IM): Express + Socket.io

socket.io Uno is a software package based on the Node.js architecture and supporting the WebSocket protocol for constant communication. socket.io provides a complete package for building real-time applications in all browsers, and socket.io is fully implemented by javascript.

4. Web tracker: Cheerio / Request

heerio It is a specially customized toolkit for the server, fast, flexible and that encapsulates the main functions of jQuery. Cheerio includes a subset of the jQuery core, removing all DOM inconsistencies and browser incompatibilities from the jQuery library, revealing its truly elegant API. 

Cheerio works on a very simple and consistent DOM model, and the parsing, manipulation, and rendering become incredibly efficient. Basic end-to-end benchmarks show that Cheerio is about eight times (8x) faster than JSDOM. Cheerio encapsulates the @ FB55-compliant HTML parser and can parse almost any HTML and XML document.

5. Web blog: Hexo

Hexo is a simple, lightweight and static blog framework based on Node. With Hexo we can quickly create our own blog, which can be completed with just a few commands.

When released, Hexo can be deployed on your own Node or GitHub server. For individual users, github deployment has many advantages, it can not only save the server cost but also can reduce the trouble of operation and maintenance of various systems (system administration, backup, network). So github-based personal sites are starting to get popular.

6. Web Forum: node club

Node Club It is a new type of community software developed with Node.js and MongoDB. It has a sleek interface, rich features, small and fast, and it’s already in the Chinese Node.js tech community. CNode Get the app, but you can use it to build your own community.

 7. Web Slide: Blade

Cleaver Can produce Markdown-based presentations. If you already have a Markdown document, you can make a slide show in 30 seconds. Cleaver is a tool for Hacker.

8. Front-end Package Management Platform: bower.js

Bower is a package management tool launched by Twitter. Based on the modular thinking of Node.js, it distributes functions in modules, so that there is a connection between modules and modules. This relationship is managed by Bower.

9. OAuth Authentication – Passport

Passport The project is an authentication middleware based on Node.js. The purpose of Passport is simply to “authenticate the login,” so the code is clean, easy to maintain, and can be easily integrated into other applications. 

Web applications generally have two types of login authentication: username and password authentication login, OAuth authentication login. Passport can configure different authentication mechanisms according to the characteristics of the application. This article will introduce the username and password authentication login.

10. Timed Task Tool – Later

Later It is a library of tools based on Node.js, which executes scheduled tasks in the simplest way. Later it can be run in Node and browser.

11. Browser Environment Tool: browserify

Browserify Appearance allows Node.js modules to run in the browser, use the require () syntax format to organize front-end code, and load npm modules. In the browser, compiled code calling browserify is also written to the <script> tag.

The operation using Browserify is divided into 3 steps. 1. Write the node program or module, 2. Use Browserify to precompile into bundle.js, 3. Load bundle.js into HTML page.

12. Command Line Programming Tool: Commander

It is a lightweight Node.js module that provides powerful functions for user command line input and parameter parsing. 

The commander originated from a Ruby project with the same name. Commander Features: Self-Documenting Code, Automatic Help Generation, Short Parameter Merge (“ABC” == “-ABC”), Default Options, Mandatory Options, Command Resolution, Prompt.

13. Web Console Tool: tty.js

tty.js It is a command-line window that supports execution in a browser, it is based on the Node.js platform, it is based on the socket.io library and communicates with the Linux system via WebSocket. 

Features: supports multi-tab window model; supports vim, mc, irssi, vifm syntax; supports xterm mouse events; supports 265 color screen; support session.

14. Client Application Tool: Node-webwit

Node-Webkit It is a fusion of Node.js and WebKit technology, provides a low-level framework for developing client applications on Windows and Linux platforms, and uses popular web technologies (Node.js, JavaScript, HTML5) to write platforms for Applications. 

Application developers can easily use web technology to implement various applications. The performance and features of Node-Webkit have made it the world’s leading web technology application platform.

15. Operating System: Node-OS

NodeOS is a friendly operating system developed with Node.js. The operating system is completely built on the Linux kernel and uses shell and NPM for package management. Using Node.js can not only carry out good package management, it is also very good. Management of scripts, interfaces, etc. Currently, both Docker and Vagrant are built using the first version of NodeOS.

FAQs – Node.js Developer Roadmap

Q1. What is the core difference between Javascript & Node Js. ?

✔️Darshit Pandit

JavaScript is a language. Node.js is not a language or a special dialect of JavaScript – it’s just a thingamabob that runs normal JavaScript.

All browsers have JavaScript engines that run the JavaScript of web pages. Firefox has an engine called Spidermonkey, Safari has JavaScriptCore, and Chrome has an engine called V8.

✔️Blanche

Node.js adopts JavaScript syntax, endowing it with basic features such as flexibility, process orientation, and single-process and single-thread execution. Thanks to its flexible language, some object-oriented features can also be achieved through logic code.

Q2. What are the main security implementations within Node.js?

✔️  Gilad David Maayan

Open-source applications inherit any security and licensing issues from their open source components. The problem is that security testing tools like dynamic and static code analysis are ineffective at detecting open source vulnerabilities.

✔️NDC Conferences

Node.js Security – Ilya Verbitskiy

Q3. What is middleware in node js & How does it Work?

✔️Selvaganesh

Middlewares are functions used in connecting a bunch of isolated systems to interact and perform certain tasks. Middleware functions are functions that have access to the request object (req), the response object (res), and the next middleware function in the application’s request-response cycle.

✔️Js Wiz

Express.js Fundamentals – 6 – Middleware

Q4.  How can we differentiate in between spawn() and fork() methods in Node.js?

✔️ChrisCM

Ultimately you could use spawn in a way that did the above, by sending spawn a Node command. But this would be silly because the fork does some things to optimize the process of creating V8 instances. Just making it clear, that ultimately spawn encompasses fork. The fork is just optimal for this particular, and very useful, use case.

✔️yoursTRULY

Summarize – Node.js Learning Roadmap

We see that Node.js has been widely used in various scenarios. For Node.js application scenarios, how should we learn Nodejs?

The following content is the documents and tutorials that we have organized. Each software package corresponds to an article. You can read it according to your needs. You can see the full list of articles: Node.js series articles from scratch.

• Project management: npm, grunt,  bower,  yeoman
• Web development: express, ejs, hexo, socket.io, restify,  cleaver,  stylus, browserify, cheerio
• Toolkit underscore, moment, connet, later, log4js, passport, passport (oAuth), domain, require, reap,
• commander, retry
• Database: MySQL, mongoose, reids
• Asynchronous: async, wind
• Deployment: forever, pm2
• Test: jasmine, karma
• Multiplatform: rio, tty
• Kernel: cluster, HTTP, request
• Algorithm ape algorithm (quicksort), ape algorithm (cube sort)

Node.js is developing rapidly, the software package version is updated very quickly, please refer to the official documentation to solve the problem if the article does not work. 

We will also update the article from time to time to try to maintain the usability of the article code.

Also, check out some other roadmaps on our website like IOS Developer roadmap 2024.