Learn Node.js in 7 Minutes for Front-End Web Developers
As frontends interact more with backends, having a grasp of Node.js is becoming essential.
In this post, we’ll explore some key Node topics and APIs relevant to frontends. Understanding Node’s modules, asynchronous code, V8 engine, event-driven model and common utilities will enable you to better collaborate, troubleshoot and extend your frontend work.
Let’s level up our Node knowledge!
Node Modules
Node has 3 types of modules:
- Core modules — bundled with Node like fs, http, path etc.
- Local modules — modules created locally in a project.
- Third party modules — modules installed from npm registry.
Modules are loaded and compiled on first use:
// Loads and compiles on first require
const math = require('./math');All modules expose functionality via exports:
module.exports.add = (a, b) => a + b;Async Operations in Node
Node uses asynchronous, non-blocking I/O to stay lightweight. All async tasks use callback functions instead of waiting:
fs.readFile('file.txt', (err, data) => {
if (err) throw err;
console.log(data);
});This allows Node to handle high concurrency and scale efficiently.
A key advantage of Node’s asynchronous, non-blocking I/O is high performance and scalability. Because I/O operations like filesystem access or network calls do not block other operations, Node can handle high levels of concurrency efficiently.
For example, a typical web server makes many I/O operations like reading files, accessing databases, calling APIs etc. Node handles each I/O asynchronously without waiting for completion before moving to the next. This allows it to process thousands of concurrent requests on a single thread.
Synchronous, blocking I/O would limit performance and scalability as each request gets tied up waiting for I/O to finish before handling the next. Node’s async model avoids this.