Introduction to BoneScript

BoneScript is BBB's handy Node.js library. What is Node.js, you ask? Also, why bother with another library? We will talk more about Node.js in the next section. However, as far as another library goes, we're bothering with it because it's designed to work seamlessly with the hardware of your board, making physical computing development under embedded Linux faster and simpler. Using Arduino-like functions, BoneScript exploits the vast developer base of JavaScript.

Typically, your intention in using Node.js and BoneScript on BBB—just as it is with Python in the next section—is to gain access to the header pins, the General Purpose In/Out (GPIO) pins. Although we will discuss more about GPIOs in a later chapter, for now our plan is to briefly explore some fundamental methods to control the hardware.