Node.js has become very famous for open source in recent years. It has grown at a rapid pace and will continue to do so. You may already know that Node.js is a JavaScript runtime environment built alongside the Chrome V8 JavaScript engine and uses an event-driven, non-blocking I/O model. Chrome V8 is an open source engine built for the Chrome browser that compiles JavaScript and this makes it faster.

Node.js was developed by Ryan Dahl in 2009 and is the result of using V8 and creating a runtime environment for running server-side JavaScript.

WHAT IS NODE.JS USED FOR?

It's perfect for real-time, data-intensive applications. It can be used as a backend engine, and it is also widely used in application interface (API) development. Since the de facto standard for REST APIs is JSON, real examples could be the use of Node.js in Netflix for things such as A/B scaling tests, the transition of the LinkedIn mobile backend application from Ruby on Rails to Node.js as well as in many other projects in different industries.

Node.js is multi-purpose, but shines with real time and high concurrency web applications (like social networks, mailers, and others) or real time communication like chats, or online games.

NODE.JS DEVELOPERS

Job searches for Node.js developers have increased in recent years, as it is a widely used and required tool by companies, due to the fact that more and more information is handled in the applications and requirements for single-page applications, fast processing and non-blocking models are requested. In the competitive environment, companies try to attract their customers to the devices they use most to gain advantages over their competitors, and many technologies for mobile devices, such as React, Angular, Ionic, React Native, are based on Node.js.

With Node.js you can take advantage of the fact that most of the programmers are very familiar with JavaScript, and so you can use this knowledge in the backend. In this way, the adaptability of the developers becomes more optimal, reducing the work times, because you will use the same language for the frontend as the backend and the company could move more agilely with their projects.

Companies prefer to work with developers or programmers with extensive experience in Node.js because they are versatile.  Since the root language is JavaScript, they can work on the frontend if necessary, and thus provide full application support at full stack level.

The range of applications that a Node.js expert can create is large: web applications, command line applications, scripts for system administrators, network applications, and the list could go on. The speed of development is one of the advantages of this tool.

THE POPULARITY OF NODE.JS

As Node.js is focused on real time and data intensive applications, it is a high-demand tool that generated a big community, plus a lot of open source packages, many tools and support from different vendors. All this is generating a good environment for Node.js as it is proving to be a good technology, in terms of performance, to generate backend applications.  Giants like LinkedIn, Netflix, PayPal, Uber, and Ebay, among others, display results of the use of Node.js in their environments and the results have been really good.

Node.js has become one of the most widely used tools for creating applications in the cloud, and is used massively in environments such as Amazon Web Services, for example.

We hope that this article has served to broaden your knowledge of Node.js. If you have any comments or recommendations, please send us an email to blog@assuresoft.com.