JavaScript is fully dynamic programming language which is used to make interactive web pages and create games, animated 2D and 3D graphics. It was first implemented client-side in Netscape Navigator and later it was adopted by other browsers.
JavaScipt has an API for working with text, arrays, dates, regular expressions, and basic manipulation of the DOM with CSS and after the AJAX it became possible to make server side calls. JavaScript engines are now embedded in many other types of host software such as server side which made it more powerful and complete programming language. Now a days javascipt is not only scripting language but you can develop complete web application in javascript.
In initial phase of the javascript, it was the language only for web browsers however in December 1995, soon after releasing JavaScript for browsers, Netscape introduced an implementation of the language for server-side scripting with Netscape Enterprise Server. But the biggest change happened in 2009 when server-side JavaScript implementations had been introduced in the form of node.js.
What is the Node.js
Node.js is an open-source and cross-platform JavaScript run-time environment for executing JavaScript at server-side. Node.js runs javascript at server side to produce dynamic web page content and send to the user’s web browser.
Node.js enables us to send request to the server and runs scripts server-side to produce dynamic web page.
Node.js can create, open, read, write, delete, and close files on the server asynchronously. basically Node.js are designed to be non-blocking and use callbacks to signal completion or failure which make it to handle tens of thousands of concurrent connections.
Node.js can add, delete, modify data in specified database. There are lot of available npm package for database interection.
Node.js Installation
It is very easy to create the development environment for node.js. To create your first node.js application you need to install node.js runtime on the system. You can download node.js runtime from Download Node.js
If you are using windows operation system, just install the Windows Installer (.msi) using the following steps:
Go to the page Node.js download and download the Windows Installer(.msi file).
After successfully download .msi file, you can run the installer by double click on the file. Follow the instructions on installer wizard interface. Installation may require Administrator privileges so ready for it.
After successfully installation, you can verfiy that Node.js was installed fully on your system by running the following command:
node -v