Why you should learn Node.js in 2022
With every year that passes by, we get a wave of new programming languages, frameworks, runtimes and libraries. As new software engineers, the sheer number of programming languages out there that you can try to learn can be daunting. According one recent article I read, there are apparently more than a 1000 programming languages. I’ve also mentioned this analysis paralysis in multiple of my previous videos that basically leads to new developers trying out a bunch of languages but not really learning any of them well enough because they don’t really know which one to stick with. But, regardless of how many cool new choices have popped up so far, if you are serious about learning something good, efficient and mature in 2022, I think NodeJS is still a great choice...
So, what is Node.js?
Node.js is a free, open-source, event-driven JavaScript runtime environment based on Google’s V8 JavaScript engine. NodeJS embraces asynchronous, non-blocking and single-threaded architecture, which makes it very effective in a lot of common web application development scenarios where being lightweight, fast and scalable is the priority. In 2021, Javascript was statistically the most popular programming language in the world. And since NodeJS allows developers to run JavaScript on the server side, it is the most popular runtime environment at the moment, with more than 50% of all software engineers in the world using it in one form or another.
Now that we know what Node.js is, let’s take a look at why it is still a great choice to learn in 2022.
First, Node.js is fast, both in terms of application performance, and in terms of the speed of development
NodeJS is built on top of V8, which is Google’s open source high-performance JavaScript and WebAssembly engine, written in C++. V8 gets its speed from just-in-time (JIT) compilation of JavaScript to native machine code. The code is first compiled by a baseline compiler, which generates non-optimized machine code. On runtime, the compiled code is then analyzed and can be re-compiled for optimal performance. And since NodeJs is built on top of V8, it naturally inherits this performance natively. On top of this, Node.js is also asynchronous and non-blocking where processes can run in parallel without having to wait for other processes to complete, which allows applications built on node to run even faster.
NodeJS also has an incredible catalog of modules and libraries that greatly decreases development time. There is also another performance advantage when using modules in Node. The first time a module is requested, it is cached in the in-app memory. Subsequent calls to the module is fetched from the cached version, making applications load faster and remain much more responsive.
Because of Node.js’s growing popularity, a large and active community provides support and resources as well. One of the most useful community-based resources is the Node package manager (or npm). npm is a huge online collection of published Node.js projects that you can install with ease. With npm, it is easy to find pre-built content and integrate it into your application, which facilitates rapid development.
Second, NodeJS is super easy to learn
As the earlier stat mentioned, the vast majority of developers are already familiar with JavaScript. And because Node.js facilitates the use of JavaScript on the server-side, it makes it much easier for front-end developers to quickly build server-side applications, even if they have limited knowledge or experience with back-end engineering. If vanilla javascript is not your thing, you can always use Typescript to introduce more strict typing and syntax to your code.
Alright, third, Node.js facilitates development of real-time applications
Large web applications in 2022 demand real time data. Companies like Facebook and Netflix process over a billion events every second. While processing such large volumes of data sn a much bigger architectural conversation than just picking a runtime environment, but Node’s architecture does make it an ideal candidate for developing applications that need real-time or near real-time data. With multiple processes able to run concurrently, Node enables rapid data transfer between server and client with asynchronous operations, ensuring little to no lag between requests and responses and instantaneous I/O operations.
Fourth, Node.js scales easily
Node.js relies on the cluster module, which is a load balancer that distributes processes across all available CPU cores. This allows Node applications to handle large numbers of processes quickly and efficiently. In addition, Node.js can support hundreds of thousands of concurrent connections making it very scalable.
Fifth, Node.js is cost-effective
NodeJS bridges the gap between frontend and backend development. This means that many companies can choose to have one full stack development team instead of separate front and back end teams. NodeJS is also very efficient in terms of resource utilization, which makes it a great candidate service-oriented-architecture instead of classic monolithic architectures. This reduces the server footprint and improves scalability which means means building new features is much simpler and faster.
Of course, every tool has its upsides and its downsides and NodeJS is no different. Some common issues developers face is NodeJS not being a great fit for CPU heavy applications, introduction of frequent vulnerabilities, hard-to-manage dependency chains and a lack of stable APIs. But, I will leave those for some other day, and in any case, if you are thoughtful about how you use NodeJS, these downsides are easily manageable. And with so many more upsides, demand for Node.js in the engineering world is quite high. So adding Node.js to your resume still makes you a desirable candidate for prospective employers.
So yeah, if you are looking to pick up something new in 2022 or you are just new to software engineering, NodeJS is still a choice in 2022! Let me know in the comments below if you have any other reasons you think software engineers should learn Node.
