Beginning Node.JS

Abstract

Undoubtedly, personal computing has revolutionized the way we live and work today. The Web has further revolutionized the way we use applications. When it was first introduced, the Internet was designed to present information in the form of documents. Later, JavaScript was added, which has been the key ingredient for the innovation we see on the Web today. Web applications are platform-independent, seamlessly updating, safe by default, and available anytime and everywhere. No wonder it is difficult to get started in a developer role today without some knowledge of how the Web works. Because of the importance of the Web and the pivotal role that JavaScript plays in web development, you can find a solution for most technical problems in some open source JavaScript project. Node.js allows you to use all these innovative JavaScript projects on the server the same as on the client browser. Using JavaScript on the server also reduces the context switching that needs to happen in your brain as you change programming language and associated code conventions. This is the emotional side of why you should use Node.js. This book is designed to be a gentle introduction to Node.js as well as JavaScript. No prior software development experience is assumed beyond a basic programming course. Since we clearly present the technical reasons behind the creation of Node.js, this book is also great if you are already comfortable programming in another environment, such as C# or Java, and are curious what all the fuss around Node.js is about. This book covers all the main areas of Node.js software development from setup to deployment so when you finish this book, you should be able to start using Node. js immediately and be ready to share your projects with the world.