Summary

In this chapter we've outlined the key problems Node's designers sought to solve, and how their solution has made the creation of easily scalable, high-concurrency networked systems easier for an open community of developers. We've seen how JavaScript has been given very useful new powers, how its evented model has been extended, and how V8 can be configured to further customize the JavaScript runtime.

Through examples, we've learned how I/O is handled by Node, how to program the REPL, as well as how to manage inputs and outputs to the process object. The goal of demonstrating how Node allows applications to be intelligently constructed out of well-formed pieces in a principled way has begun. In the next chapter, we will delve deeper into asynchronous programming, learn how to manage more complex event chains, and develop more powerful programs using Node's model.