== Intro ==[http://radar.oreilly.com/2011/07/what-is-node.html What is node?]<ref>Radar O'Reilly article from 2011 that is a good overview.</ref> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUCHr2H-7_g video with Tom Hughes-Croucher of Joyent] Node.js is a platform for doing network applications using [[JavaScript]] on the client and server. Basically, it's like an Apache web server, written in C, and using the Chrome browser's JavaScript engine. The community is well-developed and there are many pre-written 'modules'. See the [[wp:Node.js|wikipedia article]] for more.
== Links ==
== Front-end Build Tools ==
When doing nodejs development or [[front-end development]], you may also wish to employ some sort of build system or task runner for performing repetitive tasks like minification, compilation, unit testing, linting, etc.
* While many people have been using '[http://gruntjs.com/ Grunt]'
* I like '[http://slides.com/contra/gulp Gulp]' better because it's code over configuration and more intuitive.
* Meanwhile, Andrew Krespanis of SitePoint shows a great example of how you can simply [http://www.sitepoint.com/using-gnu-make-front-end-development-build-tool/ use GNU Make for a front-end development build tool]
== Node Happenings ==
The people of Node (e.g. [https://github.com/mikeal Mikeal Rogers]) are doing a lot of interesting things. Like [http://jsfest.com/ JSFest] which happened in SanFrancisco 2014, or Node school.
{{References}}
[[Category:JavaScript]]