Ask HN: What is Node.js? Framework, VM, stdlib or a platform?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7658619

by fka • 12 years ago

8 10 12 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

What is the place of Node.js on a standart stack? It's like VM but, V8 is like. It's framework-like, but not. JavaScript is the language, V8 is the interpreter and the VM-ish...

I'm completely confused. Can someone help me to figure it out?

chm• 12 years ago

Hmmm... Try these tidbits:

NodeJS is a JS interpreter. You can run Node and execute JS code inside it. Node is written in C/C++, like V8, and so it can be compiled for a lot of architectures. You can therefore run JS code "natively" on a machine. Node is single-threaded, event-driven, and can do IO. It's not a framework. It has a set of standard features (just like Python has a standard library) like an HTTP server for example. Frameworks for Node are written in JS and use the standard library to facilitate development of complex apps. Express is a popular Node framework to write web servers.

Need more?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NodeJS

http://radar.oreilly.com/2011/07/what-is-node.html

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1884724/what-is-node-js

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/what-is-node-js-and-why-should-...

fka2• 12 years ago

Is NodeJS "like V8" or "on V8"?

hasancc2• 12 years ago

neither. It just uses v8 to execute the interpreter output which is still javascript code.

V8 converts javascript to machine code, and node.js basically acts as a middle man to add functionality to javascript like "event driven programming" which can't be implemented through a basic framework.

sdogruyol• 12 years ago

Actually Node is a well packaged platform-like runtime built mainly upon these : V8, libeio, libuv and others ( DNS, OpenSSL e.g )

What makes it unique is that you use Node Standart Library with Javascript to harness the power of those.

ankurdhama• 12 years ago

A tool to build software systems.

CmonDev• 12 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactor_pattern#JavaScript

It's an implementation of the Reactor pattern basically.

Sits somewhere between an inflated library and a higher-level framework (since there are packages).

ilaksh• 12 years ago

JavaScript is generally NOT interpreted anymore. For the majority of runtime it is running as native code. Node.js is a platform. If you are that confused then you will need to spend a few weeks using it to understand it.

cabbeer• 12 years ago

Here is a seminar from the edx cs50 series on node:

https://manual.cs50.net/seminars/#_node_js

There's also a bunch of other really good ones

Ask HN: What is Node.js? Framework, VM, stdlib or a platform?

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