Node.js

Node.js is a runtime environment that allows JavaScript, traditionally confined to the browser, to run on the server. It was created by Ryan Dahl and first released in 2009, built on Chrome’s V8 JavaScript engine. The core idea is simple: take the V8 engine that Google developed for Chrome, embed it in a C++ program,…

Node.js installation is straightforward, but the choice of tooling matters more than the installation itself. Installing Node.js directly from the official website or a distribution package manager works for simple cases, but it creates a single, system-wide version that is difficult to change. Modern Node.js development almost always involves multiple projects that require different Node.js…

Node.js provides a set of global objects available in every module without requiring an import statement. These globals form the runtime environment’s foundation, offering access to the current process, console output, binary data handling, and timing functions. Unlike browser JavaScript where the global object is window, Node.js uses global (or the modern globalThis), but with…

Every Node.js file is a module. When you write code in a .js file and run it with Node.js, the runtime wraps that code in a function before executing it. This wrapper provides the require, module, and exports variables that make the module system work. Understanding this mechanism is essential because it explains how code…

ECMAScript Modules (ESM) is the official standard module system for JavaScript, introduced in ES2015. Where CommonJS was designed specifically for Node.js, ESM was designed for the language itself, intended to work in browsers, Node.js, Deno, and any other JavaScript runtime. It uses import and export statements instead of require() and module.exports, and its static structure…