What is Node.Js And What are Features Of Node.Js ?

In This tutorial, We will learn about Node.js. I will cover these topics in this tutorial – What is Node.js and What are Features of Node.js?

What is Node.js ?

Node.js is an open-source and cross-platform Server side JavaScript runtime environment. It is a very popular tool for almost any kind of project. It means you can prefer Node.js for every kind of project because of its speed and features.
 
Node.js runs the V8 JavaScript engine. V8 JavaScript Engine is built by the the Google Chrome for its JavaScript engine. This allows Node.js to be very performant. In the next section, i will give brief introduction about V8 JavaScript Engine.

Node.js was born in 2009. It 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. It was created when he argued that I/O was being handled incorrectly, blocking the entire process due to synchronous programming, and all this leads to the creation of Node.js.
 

What is V8 JavaScript Engine ?

V8 is Google’s open source high-performance JavaScript and WebAssembly engine.It is written in C++. It is used in Chrome and in Node.js. It implements ECMAScript and WebAssembly, and runs on Windows 7 or later, macOS 10.12+, and Linux systems that use x64, IA-32, ARM, or MIPS processors.

It is developed by The Chromium Project for Google Chrome and Chromium web browsers.

It’s the thing that takes our JavaScript and executes it while browsing with Chrome. V8 provides the runtime environment in which JavaScript executes. But the DOM, and the other Web Platform APIs are provided by the browser. With combination of all this, JavaScript execution works.

V8 JavaScript engine does not depend on the browser in which it’s hosted. This key feature was the main reason that enabled the rise of Node.js. V8 was chosen to be the engine that powered Node.js back in 2009. But now as the popularity of Node.js is increasing, V8 became the engine that now powers an incredible amount of server-side code written in JavaScript.

What can Node.js Do For You ?

Node.js can do all the tasks for you what is done by Any other Server side language like PHP, Asp.net etc.

Following are the tasks Node.js can do:-

• .Node.js can create, read, write and update files on the server.
• Node.js can easily connect with MYSQL Databases. It can also create, read, write and update data from Mysql Database records.
• Node.js Can also connect with NoSql Databases.

What are the Features Of Node.js ?

Node.js is becoming popular day by day. It has evolved so much in the some of the last few years.

So In this section, we will discuss what are the features of Node.js that are making it so popular.

Following are the features of Node.js:-

1. Asynchronous Programming:- Node.js uses asynchronous programming. By Asynchronous, it means:-
   • The server never waits for any operation to complete and return the data.
   • The server moves to the next API/operation after calling it.
   • The response of the previous API call is returned via Event notification system in Node.js.
2. Fast:- Because Node.js runs the V8 JavaScript engine, This allows Node.js to be very performant.
3. SingleThreaded:- A Node.js app runs in a single process, without creating a new thread for every request.
4. Non-blocking Approach:- Node.js uses non-blocking programming approach which makes it faster than other languages.
5. Highly Scalable:- Node.js uses a single threaded model with event looping. Event looping mechanism helps the server to respond in a non-blocking way and makes the server highly scalable as opposed to traditional servers which create limited threads to handle requests. 
6. No Buffers, Only Chunks:- Node.js applications never buffer any data. These applications simply output the data in the form of small chunks.
7. Event-Driven Programming:- It is a programming approach in which the flow of the program is determined by events. An event-driven program performs actions in response to the what events occurs. When an event occurs it triggers a callback function.

So these are the all features of Node.js which are making it popular.

I hope this article will help you to understand about Node.js and its features. You can leave comments for any queries.

Thank You.