7 posts tagged with "explainer"

Node JS is the first backend platform I learned and it helped me build full-stack applications. In this article, I will talk a little about Node and the concepts that go around this runtime environment. So to answer your question in simple terms,

What is Node JS? Node JS is a runtime environment for the JavaScript language similar to how you would use a Python interpreter to run Python code on your computer. Node JS is being used to run and execute JavaScript code in the server to build backend services.

According to the official Node JS website, “Node.js is an open-source, cross-platform, JavaScript runtime environment that executes JavaScript code outside of a browser” (Node.js org, 2020).

Right out of the bat you must have figured it out what open-source and cross-platform means.

Today I am going to help you save time and hassle by giving you a concrete answer whether you should learn JavaScript before learning Node JS or not. You have learned about Node JS and would like to dive in to become a backend developer. Since you asked, this means you don’t know JS or have little experience with it. Allow me to simplify this for you.

Should I learn JavaScript before Node JS? If you have taken another programming course before (like Python) then you have the proper programming foundation and can go ahead and start learning Node JS without taking a JavaScript course. You can pick up the fundamentals of JS while you build servers with Node. However, if this is the first time you are programming, then I would highly recommend you take a foundation web development course in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to get your ABCs down.

Whenever you go out and try to learn how to configure a web server with Node JS, you will see that the first thing the instructor does is to install Express. Just like you, I always wondered why most people use Express JS and is there another way to build a server without it?

Why Express JS is used in Node JS? Express JS is a minimal framework for building web applications in Node JS. It makes the process of creating a server simple with built-in methods that’s why Express JS is widely used and is the de facto framework for Node.

You are just getting started with web development and wondering how much time it takes to learn Node JS to be able to build something, like a social network, a chat application, or a SaaS to put it out there. Or maybe you are just wondering what are the skills you will need to become job-ready within a few months time. Well, my friend, you are in luck because today I am going to tell you exactly how long it takes to become a full-stack developer using Node JS sharing my own learning experience.

How much time does it take to learn Node JS? It takes around 3 months to fully learn Node JS and be able to build a functional full-stack application. If you already know some other programming, you can get the basics down within a few week’s time.

Node is often compared with other backend languages such as PHP and Python, but is it actually a language? Today I am going to answer that question once and for all.

Is Node JS a programming language? Node JS is not a programming language, it uses JavaScript language as the main programming interface. Node is a desktop application (or runtime environment) that runs JavaScript files. It mainly reads and writes files on a computer/server and does networking.

Today I am going to tell you what programming language you should learn if you want to build a social networking site like Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, or Instagram.

So what is a good language for building a social network? JavaScript. Out of all the languages and tools, JavaScript helped me quickly build a social networking site using Node JS. As a beginner I found Node JS to have the shortest learning curve when it comes to building a full-stack application such as Twitter and Reddit.

A closure happens when one function is inside another function, and the inner function wants to access a variable which belongs to the outer function.

In JavaScript every function creates its own scope. We may not realize it just by looking at the code, it will help if we visualize it like this: