JAVASCRIPT AND ITS USECASES...

WHAT IS JAVASCRIPT ?

JavaScript is a very powerful client-side scripting language, introduced to “make webpages alive”. This allows us to create dynamic content for the web. JavaScript is a lightweight language that is open-source and allows cross-platform. It doesn’t require compilation and is interpreted with object-oriented capabilities. Also, it works with various other programming languages. And this is the reason for its vast use all around the world. Many popular websites and web applications like Google, Amazon, PayPal, etc use this language. The file extension of a JavaScript file is .js.

HISTORY OF JAVASCRIPT

Brendan Eich developed JavaScript in 1995 while working for Netscape Communications, Java, Scheme, and Self, inspired it. As Microsoft became a mortal threat, Netscape started the process of standardization to prevent Microsoft from gaining access to JavaScript. They also partnered with Sun Microsystems (usually called Sun) to break the Microsoft monopoly.

Though Java and Javascript sound similar, they are not alike. They have very different syntax, semantics, and uses. The only thing in common is that both are trademarks or registered trademarks of Oracle in the U.S. and other countries.

NEED OF JAVASCRIPT ?

Most applications work due to an interaction between a client (user’s device) and a remote server. The client requests data from the server. The server receives the request, processes it and then responds accordingly. The response sent back is in a user-readable format and is thus acceptable by the client. But this process takes time as well as resources. Although we usually need this connection, in some projects, JavaScript often helps to avoid it.

JavaScript allows the validation of forms without the input of the server, reducing traffic. It provides wonderful tools for a more interactive and user-friendly website. Some of the basic functions of JavaScript are:

• Autocomplete: The search box gives suggestions, based on what the user has already typed.
• Form validation: If the users make a mistake while filling a form, JavaScript immediately informs them of the error, avoiding to fill it all again.
• Fixes layout issues to avoid the overlapping of elements on the page.
• Adds animation to the page to make it more attractive.

FEATURES OF JAVASCRIPT

JavaScript language consists of several different features. Some of the general JavaScript features are as follows –

1. Validating User’s Input

JavaScript is very useful while using forms. It has the capability to validate user input for errors and also saves time. If the user leaves a required field empty or the information is incorrect, JavaScript checks for them before sending the data over to the server.

2. Simple Client-side Calculations

Since JavaScript is a client-side technology, it can perform basic calculations on the browser. The browser does not need to ask server time for every task. This is especially helpful when a user needs to perform these calculations repeatedly. In these cases, connecting to the server would take a lot more time than performing the actual calculations.

3. Greater Control

JavaScript provides greater control to the browser rather than being completely dependent on the web servers. JavaScript provides various browsers with additional functionalities that help reduce server load and network traffic.

4. Platform Independent

Since browsers interpret JavaScript, it solves the problem of compilation and compatibility. Thus it can run on Windows, Macintosh, and other Netscape-supported systems. Also, it is possible to embed them in any other script like HTML that keeps JavaScript into use.

5. Handling Dates and Time

Unlike other programming languages, JavaScript has built-in functions to determine the date and time. Thus it is very easy to code only by using methods like .getDate().

6. Generating HTML Content

JavaScript has very handy features to dynamically generate HTML content for the web. It allows us to add text, links, images, tables, etc after an event occurrence (eg – mouse click).

7. Detecting the User’s Browser and OS

JavaScript is very capable in the detection of the user’s browser and OS information. Though JavaScript runs on every platform, there may occur a situation where we need the user’s browser before processing. This can be helpful for writing code that results in different outputs in different browsers.

JAVASCRIPT TOOLS

“Manufacturing across the board uses less of everything — only 51% of manufacturing respondents say they use a testing framework, compared to 75% in finance.”

APPLICATIONS OF JAVASCRIPT

JavaScript is mainly used in the following:

1. Websites

JavaScript lets you add behavior to the web page where the page responds to actions without loading a new page to request processing. It enables the website to interact with visitors and execute complex actions.

2. Web Applications

As browsers and personal computers have continued to improve, JavaScript gained the ability to create robust web applications. Consider applications like Google Maps. If you want to explore a map in Google Maps, all you have to do is click and drag with the mouse. You will see the part of the map that is less detailed and then fills itself in. That’s the work of JavaScript behind the scene.

3. Presentations

A very popular use of JavaScript is to create presentations as websites. Using the Reveal.js framework, this becomes really easy if you are familiar with HTML and CSS.

4. Server Applications

With the advent of Node.js a few years ago, JavaScript made its way from the browser into server. Since then Node is adopted by major companies such as Wal-Mart, as a key part of back end infrastructure.

5. Web Servers

You can create much more robust servers using Node or the standard server application framework Express.js. Many of the previously mentioned Nodes are actually built using MEAN stack (Mongo Express Angular Node) of which Express is the key component.

6. Games

While the browser hasn’t been the traditional games platform in the past, recently it has become robust for games. Additionally, with the addition of HTML5 canvas, the level of complexity that is possible in the browser-based games has increased exponentially. There are even browser games that teach us programming.

7. Art

One of the new features of HTML5 specification is the canvas element, which allows the browser to render three-dimensional spaces. This helps to open the browser as a new source for digital art projects.

8. Smartwatch Apps

Popular smartwatch maker Pebble has created Pebble.js, a small JavaScript framework that allows a developer to create an application for the Pebble watches in JavaScript.

9. Mobile Apps

One of the most powerful things you can do with JavaScript is to build an application for non-web contexts.

That’s the other way of saying that you can make apps for things that are aren’t on the internet.

For example – Mobile devices are now the most popular way to access the internet. What this means is all of the websites should be responsive. The catch is that the mobile app comes in two major applications, Apple and Android . Those applications are written in completely different languages.

10. Flying Robots

Yes, you read that right. Several commercially available quadcopters, some outfitted with a simple OS, make it possible to install Node.js. This means that you can program a flying robot with JavaScript. JavaScript is the most accessible programming language on this planet, having many features. So, it’s good to see that it is creating such a wide range of applications.

JAVASCRIPT FRAMEWORKS

A JavaScript framework is a collection of JavaScript code libraries that provide developers with pre-written code for routine programming tasks. Frameworks are structures with a particular context and help you create web applications . When it comes to front-end frameworks, a large majority of JavaScript developers use Node js, React, Vue.js, or Angular.

In this article I will be emphasizing more on one of the framework of Javascript i.e NODEJS.

WHAT IS NODE JS ?

The first thing you should know about NodeJS is that it’s not a JavaScript framework.

NodeJS is a server-side runtime environment that is built upon event-driven programming language that enables non-blocking I/O capabilities.

Thanks to this unique I/O model, building I/O-heavy and data-heavy web applications becomes very fast and easy using NodeJS.

Apart from this, the ability of NodeJS to use JavaScript on both front-end as well as back-end has also opened up many new avenues in WEB APPLICATIONS.

NODE JS USE CASES : WHEN IS IT WORTH USING ?

NodeJS, as mentioned before, gives a great boost to the productivity of your team since it uses the same programming language on front-end and back-end.

As a result, the development process becomes much faster, efficient, and cross-functional, which ultimately leads to lower development costs.

However, it’s also worth mentioning that NodeJS works best for only a certain kind of web applications.

HOW NODE JS IS DIFFERENT FROM OTHER JS FRAMEWORKS

Though there is no difference between NodeJS and other JavaScript frameworks in terms of the programming language used, what makes NodeJS different from the rest of the JavaScript frameworks is its different sets of APIs.

For example, unlike other JavaScript frameworks, NodeJS provides many APIs for backend development such as HTTP requests, streams, support for file systems, and child processes to name just a few.

Furthermore, since NodeJS uses JavaScript on both front-end as well as the back-end, it significantly increases the development speed.

Simply put, NODEJS framework allows businesses and companies to save more as NodeJS holds the capability to handle the same amount of load with less horsepower.

NODE JS USAGE : HOW THE BEST USE CASES OF NODE JS ARE CATEGORIZED:

By analyzing 10 industries that use Node.js in their tech stack and classified them into different categories. The loyalty matrix attached below is the result of our analysis as to how often Node.js gets used category wise and what’s the retention percentage of these categories.

Quadrant I includes categories that are most frequently used and to which Industries are leveraging them over time. Not surprisingly, Data streaming, Chatbots, and real-time data fall within this quadrant. Industries use Node.js for these categories every day, many times a day.  

Quadrant II consists of categories that are used intensely, but for finite periods of time. Web scraping falls within quadrant II, along with server-side proxy and a system monitoring dashboard. Although these categories are used by Industries in an intensive manner, the retention over a period of time is less than those falling in Quadrant I. 

Quadrant III is made up of categories that have low retention and infrequent use. However, the use of Node.js in these categories is expected to increase in the upcoming years. Needless to say, Big-data and IoT technology fall in this quadrant. 

Quadrant IV comprises of categories that have a low frequency of use, but a loyal Industry base. The categories like REST API, Queued I/O Inputs, and command-line apps fall in the category. 

Let’s cover these categories one-by-one.

1. Data Streaming

The Problem

Streaming data in web require heavy processing

# Data streaming is a complex process because it requires a continuous stream of data to be generated by an array of different sources and devices, delivered in a wide myriad of formats. 

The Solution

Node.js streams make data-streaming easier than ever.

# In traditional Media streaming, HTTP requests and responses are treated like isolated events; however, in reality, they are streams. Node.js can be used to build some cool data streaming features where files can still be processed while they’re being uploaded. This is possible because data comes in through a stream and can be processed online without being interrupted. For instance: real-time audio or video encoding is possible, particularly with the JavaScript library such as Node. Media and Entertainment is such an industry where Node.js can be utilized in Data streaming.

2. Server-side proxy

The Problem

Third-party proxies can cause troubles in building complex web-apps

# Third-party proxy services such as Nginx and HAProxy are sometimes not feasible and scalable in handling multiple requests from various sources at a time.

The Solution

Node.js makes it easier to build a proxy server

# While third-party proxy services such as Nginx or HAProxy are affordable, they can add to severe complexity when used for BUILDING LARGE SCALE WEBSITES. Node.js can be easily employed as a server-side proxy for collecting data from various third-party resources. Whether you are building a news websites such as BBC, a media website such as Forbes, and entertainment websites such as IMDb, you would want to load content from various third-party domains. Node.js is beneficial for proxying different services with different response times. When used as a server-side proxy, it is capable of handling a large number of simultaneous connections in a non-blocking manner. 

For instance: consider a website such as BBC news communicating with various third-party resources, gathering data from different sources, or storing assets like images and videos to third-party cloud services.

3. Big Data and Analytics

The Problem

Dealing with large data in a browser is troublesome

# If you are trying to deal with larger data in the browser, then it might wait for your users for a long time. Any user does not like to wait for more than 5 minutes with a frozen browser, no matter how cool the analysis might be. 

The Solution

Node.js back pressuring makes data processing easier

Node.js streams allow to effectively have a pipeline from which data starts at one point and flows through until the end. To overcome the problem of dealing with larger data, it is important to have a mechanism for breaking the large data into multiple chunks. Using back pressuring , which comes from implementing Node.js, you can use a computer’s resources while processing very large sets of data. 

4. Wireless Connectivity

The Problem

Bandwidth consumption and bi-directional signaling

# Bandwidth consumption is a major challenge for IoT connectivity. For collecting and routing data between devices, reliable bidirectional signaling is essential. This is a challenge as it requires a reliable server to collect the data and send it to a particular destination.

Solution

Node.js server ensures data connectivity without any request blockage

Node.js is the best solution to create a proxy server for data connectivity and routing as it supports I/O connectivity without blocking.

Some JavaScript libraries for Node.Js such as Node-Red, NodeMcu, and Node Serialport offer ready-made solutions for connecting IoT devices.

5. System Monitoring Dashboard

The Problem

Pushing real-time data at scale can be inconvenient

# Dashboards are meant to convey a large amount of information quickly, however, finding the relevant information and displaying it in real-time is difficult. While using a dashboard to respond to errors, there are high chances for you to encounter several problems like:

• You won’t be automatically notified of unusual behavior.
• You’ll need to monitor the dashboard to detect potential errors continuously.

The Solution

Pushing data in real-time with Node.JS is easy

# Using the advance capability of event loop in Node.js, you can build a powerful web-based dashboard that validates the status of all services in an asynchronous manner. The data can be pushed in real-time to clients using WebSockets. By using Node.js, both internal (intra-company) and public services’ statuses can be reported live. For instance, you can build a dashboard to monitor real-time data which runs on frameworks backed by Node.js and Websocket instead of Java or Java Applets.

DIFFERENT INDUSTRIES THAT USE NODE JS TO GROW THEIR BUSSINESS

Now that you’ve gone through use case of Node.js by category, let’s understand what are some industries that leverage these categories. 

1. Media and Entertainment 

The Media and Entertainment industry handles more than 500k requests per second and stores TBs of data on a daily basis. To build such kind of scalable web application., it is required to use cutting edge technologies such as Node.js. 

In the media and entertainment industry, data streaming is used to make the videos work. This means that instead of sending all the data in a single packet to the frontend, you should send it in little chunks at a time. The data streaming would ensure that the initial request to the server will execute the first few seconds of the video and the rest will get downloaded while playing. Node.js helps in implementing this in a good way because it can queue the data or send it in an asynchronous manner so that the requests won’t get block and you get to see the video without interruption. 

For instance: NETFLIX , the renowned video streaming platform, uses Node.js because it decreases their startup time from 40 minutes to a minute. Since javascript is a common language for both server and client-side, the team at Netflix found it more convenient than having Java on the server-side. 

2. Social Network and Communities

Whether you want to build a news feed like Twitter, Instagram, Spotify or Facebook, Node.js can be of great help. Node js enables you to build, scale and personalize the news feeds or activity streams of your social media app. The world’s biggest business and employment-oriented social networking service, LinkedIn also trusted Node.js. The company decided to move its backed from ROR to Node.js and it proved to be a smart move for them. Linkedin dumped ROR from their Tech stack and adopted Node.js because they faced huge performance issues due to the synchronous nature of ROR. By adopting Node.js, LINKEDIN experienced 20 times faster speed and improved performance with lower memory consumption.

3. Travel

Almost all the data handled by highly scaled travel search engines involve any kind of natural language processing. This works like this: the visitor searches for any place and receives 100s of related results as a response. While python is a language of choice to implement Natural language processing, you can still rely on Node.js to implement the same with ease. The developers that have used Python for implementing Natural language processing (NLP) can use Node to achieve the same results. Node.js can be your go-to-language to implement such kind of processing because it consists of a variety of language processing packages like Node.nlp.

Apart from implementing NLP, Node.js can be used in travel websites to implement a server-side rendering (SSR). The developer team at Airbnb built an entirely new service using Node.js to render their most of HTML server-side. Since SSR is compute intensive, they ran into limits when they first introduce Node.js. But they sorted out that problem using reverse proxying and load balancing. 

4. Healthcare

Numerous m-Health apps provide video consultation services so that everyone can get checkups at any time. The healthcare apps offer emergency doctor’s assistance through video-conferencing. In this case, the low-level sockets and protocol architecture act as a hindrance and difficulties arise for patients while communicating with doctors. However, when the mHealth app is built with node.js by using event-driven JavaScript architecture, the synchronization process is comparatively fast and orderly. It allows a seamless connection between patients and doctors. 

Node.js works with the NoSQL database, and it helps in the quick processing of results. It also makes it faster for patients to retrieve nearby doctors and consult them. 

The most popular on-demand healthcare web app, Doctor on demand  that plays an important role in transforming the telemedicine industry. To put it in perspective, you need to check out the following top features of on-demand doctor app that you can consider during telemedicine app development:

• Real-time Video Consultation: To build an on-demand telemedicine web app, then be considerate over real-time video consultation feature. It allows remote app users to consult in real-time via video. 
• Online Scheduling: Through the online scheduling feature, users can schedule the time as per their convenience. 
• Payment Gateway Integration: No matter what kind of web app is, it is pivotal to accept electronic payments for users’ convenience. 

5. Banking

The Javascript runtime environment is also widely adopted by several banking organizations like Capital One, as it speeds up the development process and customization. The developers at Capital One used node.js as an orchestration layer, taking advantage of the asynchronous I/O to handle multiple server requests at once. After switching to Node.js, the server load of their banking app dramatically got decreased. 

6. eCommerce

The use of Nodejs in ecommerce industry is well known! It can be used as frontend in websites or as a backend to support the heavy traffic spikes during the holiday sales. 

For instance: Groupon, a deal-of-the-day website, migrated its ROR app to Node.js stack and the results were substantial! 

7. Transportation and Logistics

Just like the Travel industry, Node.js can be used to implement a website search engine in Transportation and Logistic indutry. The web app can be built either with any front-end library like React or Angular and Node.js can be used as a custom backend or a web server. Moreover, frameworks like Express, Koa, or Sails can help you to create API endpoints to handle requests from your web app, perform some business logic and store data in any database. 

Uber used Node.js in production for its transportation web app as it responds quickly to all requests made and helps in a convenient deployment. 

8. Education and eLearning

The education industry has been disrupted by eLearning web apps, thanks to the Internet. An eLearning web app taps advanced capabilities such as course creation, database management, forums & webinars, reporting & analytics, and video conferencing. 

With Node.js, you could build a popular eLearning web app like QUIZLET that ensures fast execution of server-side JavaScript code and makes a web app lightweight and efficient.

CONCLUSION

NodeJS has become the number one choice among developers as well as companies for building modern web applications.

However, you should not use NodeJS if you’re developing a CPU-intensive web application as it may cause unresponsiveness due to its single-threaded nature.

On the other hand, NodeJS is the best choice if your web app involves dealing with heavy client-side rendering, frequent shuffling of data, multiple concurrent requests, and things .

THANKS FOR READING SO LONG

I hope this article was beneficial and fruitful.

KEEP LEARNING, KEEP SHARING

_MUSKAAN BAKSHI