Unfortunately JavaScript is the only programming language I have experience with. So naturally my gut instinct is to wonder why you wouldn't use write a programming language (in this case Node) in JavaScript?
Why C? What benefits are you getting?
C is a low-level language suited to systems programming--i.e. the construction of operating systems, database engines, and other code that must be highly efficient (in both time and space used to complete a given task). C is "close to the bare metal," compiling every effectively into machine code and CPU instructions.
You can certainly write compilers and middleware in higher-level languages than C. While there can be a speed-of-development advantage for doing so, they will almost always run slower and consume far more memory. Many languages (Python, PHP, JavaScript, ...) are implemented in C (or C++) as a result.
If you wanted to implement something like Node in another language, you would probably best look to another language that majors on systems programming, such as C++, C#, Rust, D, ...
Node.js is built on chrome's V8 engine(which allows it to execute javascript), so you should ask that why was v8 written in c++?
This answer on Quora might help you for the 2nd question
Node js is created using JavaScript language which can be run in the desktop to create application. Node js is also written in C++ because when the web server needs access to internal system functionality such as networking.
C++ has many features that let it directly interact with the OS directly
JavaScript does not! So it has to work with C++ to control these computer features.
Referring to client and server side architecture example . (Here Mick is the client) Mick's Mac/Windows needs access to a website which is hosted in the internet somewhere in a server which basically a computer.
Related
Kotlin vs Node JS for REST Api's
I couldn't find any proper explanation regarding the differences b/w Kotlin and Node JS for REST APIs
Which is better in performance wise?
Let me set the context. Its Kotlin/JVM vs JS/Node.js. We cannot blindly say that this language is better. In general Kotlin is supposed to be faster since it compiled language compared to JS which is interpreted language.
Irrespective of the language used, we will discuss on the API architecture. Serving the APIs can be implemented in either blocking or non-blocking way (I am not going to explain about what it is). Traditionally before a few of years Java/Kotlin with Spring have been using the blocking architecture which delivered performance X. On a contrary, Node.js is based on non-blocking architecture which gave us better performance than the blocking architecture and architecture style is the only reason why Node.js performed better. Later Spring released a newer version of the framework to support non-blocking architecture. The non-blocking style is called as Reactive programming/Spring Webflux.
So now both of the languages support non-blocking architecture. In terms of raw language performance, Kotlin will be better since its compiled language. Also in theory interpreted languages are supposed to be slower. But we cannot say which is better without any testing.
Personally I am fan of Java/Spring because of OOPS and later at one point I started using TS/Node.js. TS eliminates most of the runtime issues with its type checking. But still we cannot compare it with the type system available in Java/Kotlin. As a language I feel Java/Kotlin is superior and one thing I like most in JavaScript is handling objects/JSON. Checkout "Kotlin for JavaScript" as well which lets you write in Kotlin and transpile to JS. Ignore this "Kotlin for JavaScript" feature, I am planning to try Kotlin/Spring in non-blocking architecture for my future projects. If you have usecases with WebSockets, I think Node.js will perform better and I am not sure If there are any libraries in Java/Kotlin since I havn't explored it.
One disadvantage in non-blocking style is that I need to pass the login context object to almost all the methods in the project. In blocking architecture we will add the login context information in thread local so that we can access it anywhere until the request is completed.
I am sure that I did not answer your question completely. But I hope that the information what I have give is useful.
Correct me If I am wrong in any of the aspects.
Google's open sourced V8 engine is mature, performant JIT compiler.
Implemented primarily in C++, acting as JS centric execution runtime.
It has an isolation implementation (V8: Isolates), providing isolation granularity within a single process.
Leading to two part question.
(Generic)
Can this capability be broadly used for isolation across server-side web application engines (e.g. nginx, apache) and programming languages?
(And more specific ->)
What I've grasped of V8 - is that it's designed for JS scripting lang (even though, it compiles directly to machine code).
Wanting to use a programming language for source code - say Haskell, C++/C - then tends to still have JS interface in between.
Would there be a much direct way to generate machine code, while still using V8: Isolates?
V8 is a JavaScript (and WebAssembly, in recent versions) engine and as such cannot be used to compile or execute any other languages.
If you have C++ code, you'll need to use a C++ compiler to generate executable machine code for it. Haskell code needs a Haskell compiler.
Depending on your requirements, WebAssembly might be interesting to you: it is a portable compilation target for languages like C++ that is more suitable for this purpose than JavaScript.
This should answer both your "more specific" and the "generic" question.
Note that there isn't really any magic in V8's Isolates that one might want to use for other purposes; the term mostly describes the ability to have several separate instances of V8 in the same process. That's rather easy to pull off if you start your own project from scratch (no matter what its purpose is), you just have to maintain a bit of coding discipline; for an existing codebase it requires refactoring of all global state (static variables etc).
Also, note that the world has learned this year that from a security point of view, there really is no such thing as in-process isolation. If you have strong security requirements, then at the very least you'll have to run separate processes for different security domains. (To be clear, V8's Isolates do not provide protection from side-channel attacks.)
I am about to look into developing an in browser coding app for high school students that matches the modern computer science curriculum . The idea would be to avoid schools or students having to download software etc to learn the basic operations in C C++ Java and Python, as these are the permitted languages students can study . Ideally this would all be done in browser to make the offering as accessible as possible to schools.
My question is around the approach to research . Could we assembly be the way to go or would running functions on aws lamda be the way to go ? I know there are in browser tools for each language but not across them all
This question is very broad, and the answer all depends on the level of investment you want to make.
Using server-side technologies would be an easier option, as they are quite mature. AWS Lambda supports Java & Python, however C & C++ are an issue:
How to compile c++ library to be used in AWS Lambda?
Doing this all client-side would be more challenging. WebAssembly is a very new technology with good support for C & C++ via Emscripten, but poor / experimental support for Java & Python.
Personally I wouldn't use either option. I'd go for EC2, creating a machine image that had Java, Python, C & C++ set up to compile and execute code.
Creating an interactive programming environment (with debugging, syntax highlighting), is more challenging still.
Hello i need a good language and web development frame work that support uploading chunk files via web socket from client to server in an asynchronous mode (i know node.js any other one )?
The current project I am working on is heavily dependent on this particular feature.
that's true. Yes,java,python,ruby support too
Some good programming languages that support asynchronous programming are
Node.js
Node.js is basically server-side JavaScript, and is very easy to pick up.
Erlang
Erlang is a programming language used for building soft, largely scalable, real time apps.
Python
Python is a dynamic, function based programming language that is very easy to learn.
I am very new to node.js and I can not seem to find a definition anywhere as to what node.js bindings are. I have seen this term used in slides and nodejs talks but it was never clearly explained. Can anyone help clarify this concept for me? I have attached a picture of what I am referring to.
Rather than understanding what node.js bindings are, it is more useful to understand what "bindings" are in the first place.
Let's say you are writing a web application where a node.js (JavaScript) backend:
receives requests from clients,
conducts queries to databases,
sorts the query results and finally
returns the results to the client.
Now normally you would write all the code yourself. However, you know that there is an excellent sorting library that can take care of step 3 (i.e. sorting query results). The only problem is that the library is written in a system programming language such as C/C++ whereas your code is written in JavaScript. Normally you can't use that library in your code because they are in different programming languages, but with bindings, you can.
Bindings basically are libraries that "bind" two different programming languages so that code written in one language can be used in code written in another library. With the presence of bindings, you don't have to write all the code again just because they are in different languages. Another motivation for bindings is that you can benefit from the advantages of different programming languages. For example, C/C++ are much faster than JavaScript. It might be beneficial to write some code in C/C++ for performance purposes.
Now let's take a look at the picture you attached. V8 engine, according to Google Official website, is "written in C++". libuv adds a layer of abstraction that provides asynchronous I/O operations, written in C. However, the core functionalities of Node.js, such as networking, Database queries, file system I/O, are provided in libraries (or modules if you prefer) that are written in JavaScript. Plus, your code is written in JavaScript as well. Now in order for these pieces of technology written in different programming languages to communicate with each other, you have to "bind" them together, using bindings. These bindings are node.js bindings.
I've written an article lately that explains the architecture of Node.js' internal codebase where I explained how binds fit into Node.js!
Node.js bindings are series of methods that can be used in Node.js code which are in reality just running C++ code behind the scenes.
fs.readFile()
This method is not part of javascript. It's provided to v8 as part of the node.js runtime. So javascript does not know how to read a file from disk but C++ does. So when we use javascript code and node.js to read a file from disk it just defers all of that to the C++ function that can actually read the file from disk and get the results back.
Javascript also has bindings in the browser too. for example;
document.querySelector()
is not a javascript code. It is implemented by chrome V8 engine.
Upon further research i've come across this article. I hope this helps anyone out:
http://pravinchavan.wordpress.com/2013/11/08/c-binding-with-node-js/