All language subtitles for 4. Node.js - How We Got Here

Hello.

All right.

Now, before we dive into the code, before we start building node applications, we need to talk about

how Node was born.

But in order to talk about how Node got started, why it's so big, why it's everywhere and why you

need to learn it.

Well, we need to ask this question How do you run JavaScript, pause and think about this?

How do you run JavaScript?

If I told you.

Hey, run this piece of JavaScript code for me.

How would you do it?

Would you be able to run JavaScript on any computer?

Let's say you bought a brand new computer.

Can you run JavaScript on it?

Well, for some of you, your first answer might be, well, yeah, I can run it in the browser.

If we go to our browser, let's say you're using Google Chrome, Firefox, whatever, you can open up

the developer tools and you can run JavaScript in your console, right?

But the thing that's running JavaScript for you here is now your computer.

I mean, yes, it's your computer, but it's the browser that you downloaded or came pre-installed on

your computer when you bought it.

That allows us to run JavaScript if we had a fresh computer with nothing installed.

Well, JavaScript would be meaningless to the computer, right?

I mean, that's what programming is programming such as using a programming language like JavaScript

is us as programmers writing instructions so that a computer or a machine follows those instructions

in the way a browser or we're able to run JavaScript is by writing JavaScript.

And then we feed it into something like this.

Now what this is in this eight?

Well, we call that a JavaScript engine.

We're going to get back to that shortly.

But we essentially write instructions so that our machines do something with those instructions.

In our case, maybe have interactivity on a website, but in order for us to be able to run JavaScript.

We need this thing right here.

We need a way for a computer to understand JavaScript.

And this is what a JavaScript engine does.

When we download, let's say, Google Chrome, it comes in with a built in JavaScript engine.

This JavaScript engine takes whatever we write over here.

And understands it and runs the code for us.

But can we run JavaScript without a browser?

How would you run JavaScript outside of a browser?

I mean, we just talked about how we need this piece, this JavaScript engine, in order for a computer

to understand the instructions that we write.

So how can we use this engine but without a browser?

Is that even possible?

Well, let's do a quick Google search here.

If I type in JavaScript engines, maybe I can use a JavaScript engine on my own instead of the Chrome

browser.

One.

Well, as you can see here, a JavaScript engine is a computer program that executes JavaScript code.

It reads our job script and it executes.

So if I open up JavaScript engines and Wikipedia, are there multiple JavaScript engines?

Well, yeah, there are.

For example, Google Chrome uses something called the V8 JavaScript Engine.

Spider monkey is used by the Firefox browser, and then there's other things like JavaScript core that

is the one used by Apple in its Safari browser.

So there's different JavaScript engines that can read our JavaScript code, but hold on there.

We didn't really answer the question, are we able to run JavaScript outside of the browser and this

is where node comes in?

But before we get into node, we have to talk about some of the key moments that led to note because

these four key moments are what caused the world to take notice of Node.

Because up until now, we know that a browser runs a JavaScript engine.

But what if we don't have a browser?

We wanted to run JavaScript on our computers.

We need to solve that problem.

Well, let's take a history lesson 1995.

That's a big year, because that's the year that the Netscape browser introduced to us JavaScript.

Brendan, like that used to work there, essentially developed a new programming language JavaScript

that allows us to manipulate and program things on the web.

Now, in 1996, Netscape had a great idea with their version three of their Netscape Navigator.

They introduced something called Netscape Livewire, a way to create dynamic pages using server side

JavaScript.

Hey, we've heard that term before, as a matter of fact.

We can even see the press release when they announced it in 1996 with the release of 3.0 version Netscape

web servers.

Netscape Wire is fully integrated into web servers, blah blah blah blah blah.

Allows us to do essentially server side JavaScript.

But you know what?

Let's forget about life wire because it was ahead of its time and it just didn't really work anyway.

Everything went along.

JavaScript was on the front end was on the browser and then 2008 rolls around.

And this was a critical period.

Why?

Because Google announced something new and that was the Chrome browser.

And this symbol that you see here that you've seen before is what was critical.

It was called the V8 engine, a new JavaScript engine you see in 2008.

It was a pivotal moment for the web.

The idea of Web 2.0 started being talked about the idea of having websites like Flickr like Gmail that

were interactive.

It showed the world that modern experiences on the web could happen.

It's more than just pages, just a simple access and a little bit of JavaScript.

When Chrome released their new browser, it allowed JavaScript to run really fast, really performant.

It allowed users to have really good experiences on websites because it was such a good JavaScript engine.

As a matter of fact, it's the reason that Chrome browsers are so popular now.

But because we can now run JavaScript a lot faster on the web and the V8 engine was so powerful the

concept that didn't really work.

Back in 1986 with Livewire.

Well, a year later, in 2009, Ryan Dahl created no jobs.

The idea was simple Can we take this V8 engine that runs JavaScript really, really fast on the browser

and just run it outside of the browser?

Because that's the question we're trying to solve, right?

We started the course with How do you run JavaScript?

And up until now, we can run it on the browser.

But if I told you to run it on your computer without a browser.

Well before Node.js, that would have been a little bit tricky.

As a matter of fact, if you want, you can even go on YouTube, search for Grindel original Node.js

presentation and still see the presentation where he released Node JS to the world in 2009.

It's a really interesting talk and a bit of a history lesson.

Now, Ryan Dow had a bit of luck on his side because there were more and more JavaScript developers

in the world working on web applications.

But we now have the ability with note to say, Hey, can we run JavaScript outside of the browser?

Maybe we can do what Python, PHP or any other programming language can do, which is run code on things

like servers.

And because there were so many JavaScript developers already, Node was able to create this idea of

a full stack developer.

A full stack developer is somebody that can work on the web, but also in the world of, let's say,

backend back end servers, microservices.

And there you have it, Node was born in 2009, and now, well, it's a big player in the programming

world.

And if you see here, we see that A.j.'s is a JavaScript runtime built on Chrome 8's V8 JavaScript engine.

All right.

We know what Chrome's V8 JavaScript engine is, but what is a runtime?

Let's learn about that in the next video.