Since I’m refreshing (I’ve done a little before) and learning new material in Node, I thought I’d make a few posts covering the basics. For anyone interested, I’m finding Andrew Mead’s Complete Node.js Developer on Udemy very helpful so far!
First up, what is Node.js?
Node.js a JavaScript runtime environment which allows your JavaScript code to run outside of the web browser (the client side of things) and on the server and command line side of things. It runs on Chrome’s V8 JavaScript engine.
It is non-blocking which means that initiating one data request will not block another from starting, i.e., it’s faster!
It makes use of a call-stack. Every time a new method in your program is called, the “call-stack” will get that new value added on top of it. Each part of the call-stack is like an element in the history of our program. When each function has been completed, it is no longer needed and it is “popped-off” the stack or the program history.
Node has an event queue. As we know, methods are added to the call stack as we go through our program. If one of those methods has to be called at a specific time, for example, that method can be pushed onto the event queue while allowing the remaining code to continue running. Once JS has gone through the program it will check the event queue to see if there’s anything left over to run.
Hope that’s helpful! Do you have any good Node.js tips?
Here a couple of other useful resources 🙂
https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/what-exactly-is-node-js-ae36e97449f5/
Ciara Anderson, PhD 