Node.js and How JavaScript is Changing Server Programming

Node.js is a highly concurrent JavaScript server written on top of the V8 JavaScript runtime. This is awesome for a number of reasons. Firstly Node.js has re-architected some of the core module of V8 to create a server implementation that is non-blocking (similar to other event driven frameworks like Ruby’s Event Machine or Python’s Twisted). Event driven architectures are a natural fit for JavaScript developers because it’s already how the browser works. By using an event driven framework Node is not only intuitive to use but also highly scalable. Tests have shown Node instances running tens of thousands of simultaneous users.

This session will explore the architectural basics of Node.js and how it’s different from blocking server implementations such as PHP, Rail or Java Servlets. We’ll explore some basic examples of creating a simple server, dealing with HTTP requests, etc.

The bigger question is once we have this awesome programming environment, what do we do with it? Node already has a really vibrant collection of modules which provide a range of functionality. Demystifying what’s available is pretty important to actually getting stuff done with Node. Since Node itself is very low level, lot’s of things people expect in web servers aren’t automatically there (for example, request routing). In order to help ease people into using Node this session will look at a range of the best modules for Node.js.

• How to get started with Node.js
• Which modules are important and how to pick the ones for them
• Participants should have a good understanding of JavaScript and be familiar with web development to make the most of this talk.