Node.js for Web App Development

Node.js is an open source, cross-platform built on Chrome’s JavaScript runtime for fast and scalable server-side and networking applications. Being an interface to the V8 JavaScript runtime, it enables event-driven programming to the web servers through super-fast JavaScript interpreter that runs in the Chrome browser.

Node.js works on a non-blocking I/O model that makes it clean and usable, ideal for the data-intensive real-time applications that have to perform in varied environments. Beating the conventional pattern, Node.js has bought a revolution in the development circle and has become the sought after option for brands like Yahoo, eBay, Walmart etc.

Node.js empowers the organizations to create quick, robust network applications that can tackle parallel connections with increased throughput. It does not slow the working by any chance, but the developers need to be careful while writing the codes and the applications will get onto the right track.

Go With Data Streaming: This feature can be utilized to its fullest with Node.js to create some of the best attributes like processing files at the time of uploading time as this can reduce the overall processing duration when data comes in the form of streams. The same can also be deployed at the time of real-time video or audio recording.

The event-driven architecture caters to both the client-side and the server-side that are written in JavaScript and thus the synchronization process is fast and orderly. The event loop through web socket protocol which works on TCP handles the multi-user function and prevents the overhead of HTTP for web development.

Node.js has released it's version 10 and it's going under the codename “Dubnium”. It been over seven years since Node.js was released and it's their 7th major release.  Now let's jump into what's new in version 10, what's new features introduced and what they have deprecated in their new release! Releases in the Long Term Support line focus on Performance, security, stability, extended support and providing a reliable platform for applications of any scale.

Node.JS version 10 features and improvements

HTTP/2 is a higher performer than it's the previous version of HTTP. The implementation of HTTP/2 has landed in Node.js  v8.4.0(LTS) as an experimental feature. With Node v10 the HTTP 2 module has become a stable addition to the Node core for web applications and the web platform.

N-API is an API that allows developers to build native Add-ons. When JavaScript performance isn't enough for providing the performance boost to the codebase we used Node.JS Add-ons by providing an interface between JavaScript running in Node.js and C/C++ libraries. We can use that interface to build dynamically-linked shared objects in C++ that we can load into a Node.js application through a require() function.Add-ons is same as Node.js modules but offers a performance boost for computationally demanding applications when needed. 

Node.js V8 has been updated to it's version 6.6 in Node.js 10 with guaranteed forward ABI compatibility with V8 6.7. which comes with Chrome 66 and provides the reduction of around 20–40% in both parse and compilation time of JavaScript.Promise and async/await execution has improved significantly, resulting in Hapi v17 realizing a 30% increase in throughput. 

Node.js10 is the first release to include OpenSSL 1.x sets it up for an easy API and ABI stable upgrade after OpenSSL 1.1.1 released. Recent work by OpenSSL and the Core Infrastructure made it possible for Node.js 10 to really take advantage of OpenSSL including the ChaCha20 cipher and Polu1305 authenticator.

The problem is two module systems are not compatible so the Modules Team had to find a proper solution so JavaScript modules could be built on a platform to be used both in Node and in browsers. You could work this around using the module pattern, but it still wasn’t really convenient.

Node.js 10.0.0 has updated its NPM from v5.7 to v6.0. This major version increase in NPM provides an improvement in all areas including the focus on performance, security, and stability offering major performance boost compared to prior versions of NPM. 

New JavaScript language features introduced in node.js v10

1. Function.prototype.toString()

This method returns exact slices of source text which include whitespace and comments.

2. The function trimLeft() and trimRight() becomes aliases for the newly implemented String.prototype.trimStart() and String.prototype.trimEnd() to ensure backward compatibility

3. The catch clause of try statements no longer requires a parameter.

APIs deprecated in Node.js 10

1. Using require() to access several of Node.js own internal dependencies will emit a runtime deprecation.

2. Use of the tls.convertNPNProtocols() method will emit a runtime deprecation warning.

3. Previously deprecated legacy Async_hooks APIs have reached end-of-life and have been removed.4. Previously deprecated internal getters/setters on net.Server has reached end-of-life and has been removed.

Some advantages of using Node JS:

1.      Highly Scalable Server Side Soultion

2.      One language across the development stack.

3.      Best for real time apps like chat and games

4.      NodeJs is an open- source platform, so you can use it for free.

5.      It support multiple scripting language like Ruby, CoffeeScript, and TypeScript.

6.      Perfect for Microservices.

To summarize, Node.js is a cross-platform JavaScript runtime environment for servers and applications. It is built on a single-threaded, non-blocking event loop, the Google Chrome V8 JavaScript engine, and a low-level I/O API.