JavaScript is without a doubt one of the most popular programming languages out there today and with good reason. It can easily be run in your browser, on your desktop or a server, or even on your phone as an app. One of the most accepted and popular and easiest ways to write JavaScript is using Node.js so here you will find the ultimate guide to Node.js for beginners.
There are a good number of resources out there to learn Node.js from scratch, but not all of them give you the background, tools, and resources you need to succeed to create a web server in Node.js.
So here I will provide you with a guide that I had wished I had when I was just starting. I’ll start with a short description of what Node is and what a guide for Node.js for beginners looks like, giving you some examples and concepts and also some resources. This will be a complete guide for you.
Let’s start with what our guide to Node.js for beginners is all about.
What is Node.js?
Node.js is an open-source server-side runtime environment built on Chrome’s V8 JavaScript engine. It provides an event-driven, non-blocking (asynchronous) I/O and cross-platform runtime environment for building highly scalable server-side applications using JavaScript.
Node.js can be used to build different types of applications such as command-line applications, web applications, real-time chat applications, REST API servers, etc. However, it is mainly used to build network programs like web servers, similar to PHP, Java, or ASP.NET.
How to Get Started Learning Node.js for Beginners
If you think learning Node.js will be the next step towards advancing your career below is a typical ultimate guide to Node.js for beginners that will help you achieve it.
1. Realize the significance of the name “Node”
Once you know why it is called Node, you will also know how it works. It’s called Node because it is used to create simple single-process blocks called nodes. These nodes can be arranged with good networking protocols for communication with each other and be scaled up to build large distributed programs.
2. Study JavaScript
You should start by learning JavaScript as Node is written in JavaScript. This means learning scopes, functions, closures, module patterns, classes, promises, and callbacks, as well as the capabilities of Strings, Recursions, Numbers, Arrays, Objects, Sets, and Maps.
3. Learn about non-blocking in Node
This is the main attribute of Node. You need to acknowledge how I/O operations in Node have performed asynchronously, with the lines of code obeying a non-blocking pattern
- Give Node instructions (a function) to execute.
- Give the function some arguments.
- Give Node a callback with your function.
- The node will then start to take instructions from other lines after yours.
- When your function is computed, Node will call your callback with the result of the computation
4. Get to know the global variables
To understand all the options, write global in a Node REPL (read-eval-print-loop) and write global. Once you have typed in that it will show JavaScript Node library functions and Node global objects. Study the various tasks that you can use them for.
5. How to Make Use of the Node.js Libraries
You can use the libraries to study how to run a TCP server and program sockets using “net,” how to read/write files with “fs,” or how to run a streaming-ready web server with “HTTP” and more tasks.
6. Learn Node.js programming
Study and try to analyze some of the codes on a framework like “Express.” It becomes a lot easier when learn a Node.js online course in group. Resources to learn Node.js
7. Study the Event Loop Theory
Essentially, there are stacks and queues and heaps. In a loop, the queue is polled for the next message and when a message comes across, the callback for that message is executed. You can check out many online sources for more on this process and an illustration of the loop.
8. Without using any frameworks learn to write a Web Application on Node
First, handle many cases so you can get more comfortable using Node.
Strategies for Learning Node.js for Beginners from Scratch
The above-said things are only to get you started. When studying Node, you will need to be programming almost 90 percent of the time. You’ll for sure need more knowledge and education than what we’ve listed above to accomplish that. But there’s nothing to worry about there are several useful resources you can use to learn Node.js from scratch and spend more time programming, including:
- Courses – Node courses differ on various levels depending on the level of proficiency you already have and the resource of learning. There are many options including Node courses taught in traditional classrooms and those taught through 1-on-1 guidance or even virtually today.
- Videos – Digging into documentation may be very tiresome especially when you are new to Node, so finding videos is a better place to start to learn.
- E-books – Node is open source and hence there are many resources, many books, and even e-books for asynchronous programming node.js.
- Tutorials – There are many types of free tutorials you can find online to learn Node.js from scratch.
- Boot camps – Many coding boot camps are being conducted where they are teaching web development Node.js.
- Blogs – Blogs can help you both learn Node.js and also teach you about the current changes in this field. See for example The Node.js blog.
- Frameworks – When you’re ready to dig very deep, start to tackle the best Node.js framework.
Benefits of Node.js Education
1. High-Performance Real-Time Applications Can Be Developed Using Node.js
One of the main pros or advantages of Node.js is that you can build extremely fast applications that give results in the blink of an eye.
Web applications powered by Node.js gain majorly from their capacity to multitask. S0 here you can find the ultimate guide to Node.js for beginners. Its single-threaded, event-driven architecture processes multiple parallel requests efficiently without overloading the RAM. Also, its event-loop and non-blocking I/O operations let code execution at a pace that indirectly impacts the application’s final performance.
Node.js helped GoDaddy rise and shine brightly from its competition. During the Super Bowl ad campaign, the web hosting company GoDaddy handled 10,000 requests per second absolutely without downtime by operating on only 10% of the hardware.
Node.js gets power from Google Chrome’s V8 engine which is written in C++. It compiles JavaScript into machine code quickly and with high proficiency.
To ensure that the efficiency doesn’t hamper and improvements remain continuous, Google has introduced the V8 benchmark suite to enhance Node.js performance with speedy execution, security patchworks, better compilers, and the capacity to scale. All this will eventually lead to us improving our programming skills and becoming experts.
2. Cost-effective Using Full-Stack JavaScript
Node.js enables coders to write server-side code in JavaScript, along with JavaScript code on the front-end with total ease. This means it surpasses the blocks of hiring two resource teams, saving a great deal of time, energy, and cost for overall project development which is one of the best Node.js advantages.
Even LinkedIn’s web development team post shifted from Ruby on Rails to Node.js, and they obtained performance momentum from Node.js advantages. The number of servers also reduced from 30 to only 3. They started resource delegation and utilization more proficiently and migrated their focus from troubleshooting to app development.
3. Provides Flexibility To Meet Specialized Requirements
Node.js provides high extensibility, which means that Node.js can be customized and extended further as per the requirements.
You can also use JSON format to interchange data between the web server and the client. It also assists with built-in APIs for developing HTTP, TCP, DNS, etc., servers.
4. Modern Applications Can Scale Easily Utilizing Node.js
With an increasingly high growth of several consumer bases of tens of millions of users for titans like Netflix, Amazon, Uber, Walmart, and PayPal, among others, have observed the benefits of the Node.js web app as a viable solution for scalability. Node.js has proved to be an asynchronous programming node.js.
This cutting-edge, world-class technology arises with loads of qualities like the cluster module. It simplifies load balancing over several CPU cores, and without burning out the RAM process, it provides an easy platform to deliver desired outcomes through smaller modules.
In addition to that, Node.js uses a non-blocking event-loop mechanism that offers high scalability and ensures the server can process requests effortlessly.
One of the chief advantages of the Node.js and microservice is that it lets modern apps scale up and down as per demands or in short, allows customization according to the needs. This way, it aids companies to gain high performance with fewer resources.
5. Supports A Wide And Active Community
Node.js community has millions of developers and coders who are actively contributing and improving. There is wide support from development professionals across the globe to solve even the most difficult or unusual development problems.
This vibrant community of developers and coders is supported by many leading tech giants like Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Netflix, contributing to Node.js highly. They have made some excellent contributions in the form of many open-source solutions. Acceptance by tech titans, with the developer’s community on the side, ensures tech presence and growth in the coming future. Hence, learning Node.js from scratch today will take you a long way in the tech industry.
6. Node.js For Beginners Is Easy To Learn
Without a second doubt, JavaScript is one of the most popular and widely used programming languages in the developer’s or coder’s community per se. For Node.js for beginners, Node.js is easy to adapt and utilize and other use cases. Writing code with Node.js takes less time.
JavaScript is undoubtedly one of the most popular programming languages for front-end development, it is like a universal programming language. Even if you are a novice or a junior developer, you can learn and work with Node.js in comparatively less time and effort.
A recent Stack Overflow survey revealed that a whopping 49,9% of the professional developers, who took part in the voting, elected Node.js as the most commonly used language or technology. Which is an answer to the questions like why Node.js is so popular or so common.
7. Fosters the Development of Cross-Functional Teams
Let’s presume that you have employed two teams for project development and quality testing, who work independently and whose responsibilities and expertise are separate.
Even though this sounds ideal, the probability that these teams will have substantial communication gaps is high, which will then lead to massive loopholes in your product.
Sounds like an issue, yeah? Node.js is the solution!
Node.js provides full-stack development ability. It helps you make a team that focuses on improving your development life cycle so that even if there are any sudden challenges, they can be accommodated.
This work environment adds to your improved productivity and helps you resolve issues and troubleshoot them accordingly. As a result of which, you are very close to reducing your time-to-market.
8. Speeds Up Response Time And Increases Performance
Did you know that Netflix had a start-up time of just 40 minutes when they were using Java and JavaScript? But after that, they switched to Node.js and it’s like they hit the jackpot because then the time was reduced to 40 seconds.
Well, it goes without saying that a continuous to and from of requests has a remarkable effect on an app’s response time and performance. If your tech stack is not ready to handle loads of requests, then the value of the product reduces rapidly.
Asynchronous programming Node.js has a single-threaded event-loop model that offers a non-blocking asynchronous architecture. With this architecture, it does not create more threads which reduces the number of resources you employ. It also assists in boosting your application’s responsiveness as it deals with multiple concurrent users simultaneously.
Conclusion:
If you are a novice who wants to start a career in the tech industry, register for our online course Node.js for beginners, and get relevant certifications from online sources like AttainU and get your career launched. The course at AttainU or some other online sources like it will not only scale up your skills and knowledge but also help you with Node.js interview questions so that you are full-fledged and ready to get started in this field.