Node JS
whyWeUse Node JS?
Node.js shines in real-time web applications employing push technology over websockets. What is so revolutionary about that? Well, after over 20 years of stateless-web based on the stateless request-response paradigm, we finally have web applications with real-time, two-way connections, where both the client and server can initiate communication, allowing them to exchange data freely. This is in stark contrast to the typical web response paradigm, where the client always initiates communication. Additionally, it’s all based on the open web stack (HTML, CSS and JS). This stack allows us to create very efficient backend applications for any need with slight design
whatAreGoalsOfStack
Real-time applications
As we have found that Node.js can ensure great speed and performance, one of the textbook Node.js use cases is real-time messaging, or chatting. The environment can support heavy traffic of multiple short messages, or chatrooms when messages are displayed to many users at the same time.
IoT applications
The synergy of Node.js IoT is the best possible for implementing IoT development projects.First, Node js is fast and powerful, and therefore capable of handling large data flows. Second, you can easily integrate Node.js with IoT protocols (the integration with MQTT and WebSockets can be a good example).And finally, the Node Package Manager briefly described above, has a significant number of helpful IoT modules that help implement the most ambitious IoT projects.These are just a few reasons why some big brands, including Microsoft, are already using Node.js for their IOT development purposes.
Collaborative tools
This Node.js use case example is also related to its ability to process real-time flows. You should have heard of Trello, a project management application that is rather popular with software development companies. Well, Trello was developed on the basis of Node.js and benefited from its event-driven, non-blocking model. Node.js is great for applications requiring immediate updates, such as various collaboration tools and online documentation suites.
Data streaming applications
The term “streaming” means exactly that – sending large amounts of data in smaller packages instead of a single batch. This ability is especially critical for audio or video streaming applications. Node.js is perfectly suited for this task with built-in modules supporting data streaming and allowing to create both readable and writable data streams. If we add that Netflix, a global media service provider, uses Node.js, you may get the idea of how powerful this environment is.
Applications relying on scalability
The superb scalability supported by Node.js answers the “why Node.js” question for apps required to withstand high peak loads. This is the reason why Uber chose Node.js to develop its app. The global taxi network is always growing and expanding its presence; at the same time, the nature of the taxi business causes high demand peaks during holidays. Node.js handles these challenges quite well.
whatIsAdvantages
Non-blocking I/O
The main idea of this feature is to avoid such things as synchronous threads, which start a separate thread for each request and block the entire process.Instead of helping the web server to start individual threads, Node.js allows working with the so-called single threads, which are processed one after another. This helps to get rid of synchronization between threads and eliminate the issues related to it.
Libuv
Libuv is a multi-platform C library that was mainly designed for use in the Node.js environment. This is exactly the component that allows the endless processing of single threads.To be precise, Libuv creates a pool of up to four threads that are processed simultaneously. Additionally, it sends requests to the operating system, which takes care of the timing.
Node Package Manager
Node Package Manager, also known as npm, is the default package manager for Node.js. Although you get many useful modules when you first install Node.js, you can better adjust the system to your needs with the help of Node Package Manager.Its database of packages – both free and paid – is called npm Registry. Today millions of programmers worldwide rely on the npm Registry, which serves around 125 billion requests at an impressive 6 petabytes per month.According to npmjs.com, the npm Registry had about 1 million packages in the summer of 2019. In April 2020, the firm behind Node package manager, announced that this number had already crossed the 1.3 million mark.