Overview[1][2]#
Node.js is an Open Source, cross-platform JavaScript runtime environment for executing JavaScript code server-side, and uses the Chrome V8 JavaScript engine.Historically, JavaScript was used primarily for client-side scripting, in which scripts written in JavaScript are embedded in a webpage's HTML, to be run client-side by a JavaScript engine in the user's web browser.
Node.js enables JavaScript to be used for server-side scripting, and runs scripts server-side to produce dynamic web page content before the page is sent to the user's web browser. Consequently, Node.js has become one of the foundational elements of the "JavaScript everywhere" paradigm, allowing web application development to unify around a single programming language, rather than rely on a different language for writing server-side scripts.
Node.js the ".js" is not referring the conventional filename extension for JavaScript code in this context it is just the name of the product.
Node.js was originally written in 2009 by Ryan Dahl and the initial release supported only Linux and Mac OSX.
More Information#
There might be more information for this subject on one of the following:- [#1] - Node.js
- based on information obtained 2017-04-10
- [#2] - Nodejs.org - based on information obtained 2017-04-10