What is Node.js?

I think the advantages are:

1. Web development in a dynamic language (JavaScript) on a VM that is incredibly fast (V8). It is much faster than Ruby, Python, or Perl.

2. Ability to handle thousands of concurrent connections with minimal overhead on a single process.

3. JavaScript is perfect for event loops with first class function objects and closures. People already know how to use it this way having used it in the browser to respond to user initiated events.

4. A lot of people already know JavaScript, even people who do not claim to be programmers. It is arguably the most popular programming language.

5. Using JavaScript on a web server as well as the browser reduces the impedance mismatch between the two programming environments which can communicate data structures via JSON that work the same on both sides of the equation. Duplicate form validation code can be shared between server and client, etc.

V8 is an implementation of JavaScript. It lets you run standalone JavaScript applications (among other things).

Node.js is simply a library written for V8 which does evented I/O. This concept is a bit trickier to explain, and I'm sure someone will answer with a better explanation than I... The gist is that rather than doing some input or output and waiting for it to happen, you just don't wait for it to finish. So for example, ask for the last edited time of a file:

// Pseudo code
stat( 'somefile' )

That might take a couple of milliseconds, or it might take seconds. With evented I/O you simply fire off the request and instead of waiting around you attach a callback that gets run when the request finishes:

// Pseudo code
stat( 'somefile', function( result ) {
  // Use the result here
} );
// ...more code here

This makes it a lot like JavaScript code in the browser (for example, with Ajax style functionality).

For more information, you should check out the article Node.js is genuinely exciting which was my introduction to the library/platform... I found it quite good.

Node.js is an open source command line tool built for the server side JavaScript code. You can download a tarball, compile and install the source. It lets you run JavaScript programs.

The JavaScript is executed by the V8, a JavaScript engine developed by Google which is used in Chrome browser. It uses a JavaScript API to access the network and file system.

It is popular for its performance and the ability to perform parallel operations.

Understanding node.js is the best explanation of node.js I have found so far.

Following are some good articles on the topic.

• Learning Server-Side JavaScript with Node.js
• This Time, You’ll Learn Node.js

Well, I understand that

• Node's goal is to provide an easy way to build scalable network programs.
• Node is similar in design to and influenced by systems like Ruby's Event Machine or Python's Twisted.
• Evented I/O for V8 javascript.

For me that means that you were correct in all three assumptions. The library sure looks promising!

Q: The programming model is event driven, especially the way it handles I/O.

Correct. It uses call-backs, so any request to access the file system would cause a request to be sent to the file system and then Node.js would start processing its next request. It would only worry about the I/O request once it gets a response back from the file system, at which time it will run the callback code. However, it is possible to make synchronous I/O requests (that is, blocking requests). It is up to the developer to choose between asynchronous (callbacks) or synchronous (waiting).

Q: It uses JavaScript and the parser is V8.

Yes

Q: It can be easily used to create concurrent server applications.

Yes, although you'd need to hand-code quite a lot of JavaScript. It might be better to look at a framework, such as http://www.easynodejs.com/ - which comes with full online documentation and a sample application.