Understanding node.js: some real-life examples

Question

As a curious web developer I've been hearing about node.js for several months and (just) now I'd like to learn it and, most of all, understand its "engine".

So, as a real newbie about node.js I'm going to follow some tutorials. And as every new technology over the internet, find a very good and exhaustive tutorial is like looking for a needle in a haystack :)

My "big question" can be split into this 2 sub-questions:

• I know node.js can be very useful to build web-chats. But, apart from this example (and from helloworld one :D), how could I use it? Which are the real-life examples that let me think i.e. "oh, it's fantastic, I could really integrate it for my daily projects"?

• I also know it implements some JS specifications. It is required to deeply know other programming languages apart from JS?

Thanks everyone!

Answer 1

Node.js allows you to write server-side network applications in JavaScript. It provides a core library containing functions you'd find in other languages, like reading files and spawning subprocesses, and it uses the very-efficient libev library for its event loop.

It's buzzworthy because it lets you write very efficient network programs in a high-level programming language. Since that language is JavaScript, you can share some code between the server and browser.

There's little "deep" knowledge of JavaScript going on — what's different is that the language in the same way you'd use Python or Ruby instead of on the browser. The specifications it implements are probably those listed on the CommonJS website.

The other bit is that it makes heavy use of asynchronous programming — just about every action takes a callback function instead of returning a value. If you're used to Scheme, Perl or Ruby, you'll be comfortable immediately.

Some examples:

• Scrabble MMO
• a real-time collaborative editor
• a Minecraft server

Answer 2

Regarding tutorials and such, see:

node.js beginner tutorials?

Node.js's main purpose AFAIK is to write network programs that can scale. Frameworks written on top of it can be used for other purposes, such as writing Web apps.

Regarding other languages, it seems like the tricky part is learning asynchronous programming, especially for many of us coming from a synchronous programming background (though client-side JS experience provides some foundation).

For some real life examples, check out:

http://groups.google.com/group/nodejs/browse_thread/thread/03f7fcb9c29edafb#

Answer 3

the videos from node camp are worth checking out http://camp.nodejs.org/videos/index.html

Answer 4

nodetuts.com has some really good videos(although at times I think the pace could be a little faster). Just sit back, relax and watch to learn node.js

Answer 5

Regarding learning material - E-Books

1. NodeBeginner
2. MasteringNode