Home >Web Front-end >Front-end Q&A >Is node.js a high-level language?
node.js is not a high-level language, but a JavaScript running environment based on the Chrome V8 engine. It is a development platform that allows JavaScript to run on the server. It is used to support the execution of JavaScript code and to conveniently build responses. Fast, easily scalable web applications.
The operating environment of this tutorial: windows7 system, nodejs version 12.19.0, DELL G3 computer.
JavaScript was born in 1995, almost at the same time as the Internet; Node.js was born in 2009, about 15 years later than JavaScript.
Before Node.js, JavaScript could only run in the browser and be used as a web page script to add some special effects to the web page or communicate with the server. With Node.js, JavaScript can be separated from the browser and used directly on the computer like other programming languages. It can do whatever it wants without being restricted by the browser.
Node.js is not a new programming language, nor is it a JavaScript framework. It is a JavaScript running environment based on the Chrome V8 engine. It is a development platform that allows JavaScript to run on the server to support JavaScript. Execution of code. In programming terms, Node.js is a JavaScript runtime.
Node.js optimizes some special use cases and provides alternative APIs to make V8 run better in non-browser environments. The V8 engine executes Javascript very quickly and has very good performance. It is based on Chrome JavaScript The platform established at runtime is used to easily build network applications with fast response speed and easy expansion.
The birth of Node.js
The life of JavaScript has been accompanied by the browser wars. JavaScript was released by the Netscape browser, but Netscape lost the competition with IE and has long ceased to exist. Later, Google's Chrome browser suddenly emerged and rubbed IE to the ground with its powerful performance.
Google has integrated a JavaScript engine (also known as JavaScript interpreter) called "V8" into the Chrome browser, which can parse and execute JavaScript code very quickly.
The V8 engine is written in C language and can run independently or be embedded into any other C program. Google has made the V8 engine and even the entire Chrome browser open source, and anyone can apply V8 to their own projects for free.
The power of the V8 engine and the popularity of JavaScript at that time made a programmer named Ryan Dahl have a "wrong idea". He hoped to build a runtime for JavaScript outside of the browser, so that JavaScript can run directly on the computer, so that JavaScript can be as big as other scripting languages such as Python, Ruby, and PHP. It no longer has to be limited to the browser and can only do some small things.
Ryan Dahl and his team really did it, and did it well. They named this independent JavaScript runtime Node.js; in order to avoid being mistaken for a JavaScript framework, it is now often Referred to as Node.
Advantages of Node.js
1. Front-end/back-end development uses the same language
Technology like ASP.NET or Spring is required Developers learn a new server-side language, such as C#, VB.NET or Java. Node.js uses JavaScript on both the server and client sides, which means developers only need to use one language at each layer.
2. Easy to learn, easy to transform for developers
One fact is that JavaScript is a language well known to web developers, and most people understand JavaScript or have used it to some extent. So, it is very simple for a web developer to transition from other technologies to Node.js.
3. Lightweight
Node.js uses an event-driven architecture, which means that everything done on it, every independent call and operation, is an event-driven architecture. A series of asynchronous callbacks. This allows Node.js to run on a thread, which is different from other web technologies, which generate a new thread for each client request. This is the essence of non-blocking I/O.
4. Support NoSQL database
It is very common to use NoSQL databases like MongoDB in Node.js applications. MongoDB is different from traditional SQL databases in that it uses A document-based model rather than a relational model, it uses objects like JSON instead of tables. This is perfect for ORM lovers.
5. There are good IDE and code editor support
JavaScript has been around for a long time, so IDEs like Visual Studio and Eclipse all support JavaScript code prompts and advanced Bright, and code editors like NotePad and Sublime Text also support these.
6. Code hosting service supports a wide range of
Some web servers and cloud service providers support Node.js web applications. Let’s talk about a few here, including Google, Microsoft IIS, Heroku, Microsoft Azure, Amazon (AWS) and so on.
For more node-related knowledge, please visit: nodejs tutorial! !
The above is the detailed content of Is node.js a high-level language?. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!