Today I Learned - Rocky Kev

TIL why NodeJS in reference to I/O

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TAGS: javascript node definitions

Here’s a formal definition as given on the official Node.js website:

Node.js® is a JavaScript runtime built on Chrome’s V8 JavaScript engine.
Node.js uses an event-driven, non-blocking I/O model that makes it lightweight and efficient.
Node.js’ package ecosystem, npm, is the largest ecosystem of open source libraries in the world.

What the heck is a I/O and what does that mean?

I/O refers to input/output. It can be anything ranging from reading/writing local files to making an HTTP request to an API.
I/O takes time and hence blocks other functions.

Imagine if you had 2 API requests.

Using Javascript in the browser:

If this was a web server, we would have to start a new thread for every new user. But JavaScript is single-threaded (not really, but it has a single-threaded event loop, which we’ll discuss a bit later). So this would make JavaScript not very well suited for multi-threaded tasks.

While NodeJS:

On the other hand, using a non-blocking request, you can initiate a data request for user2 without waiting for the response to the request for user1. You can initiate both requests in parallel.

REFERENCE:
What exactly is Node.js?

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