About this Book
Node.js in Practice exists to provide readers a deeper understanding of Node’s core modules and packaging system. We believe this is foundational to being a productive and confident Node developer. Unfortunately, this small core is easily missed for the huge and vibrant third-party ecosystem with modules prebuilt for almost any task. In this book we go beyond regurgitating the official Node documentation in order to get practical and thorough. We want the reader to be able to dissect the inner workings of the third-party modules they include as well as the projects they write.
This book is not an entry-level Node book. For that, we recommend reading Manning’s Node.js In Action. This book is targeted at readers who already have experience working with Node and are looking to take it up a notch. Intermediate knowledge of JavaScript is recommended. Familiarity with the Windows, OS X, or Linux command line is also recommended.
In addition, we’re aware that many Node developers have come from a client-side JavaScript background. For that reason, we spend some time explaining less-familiar concepts such as working with binary data, how underlying networking and file systems work, and interacting with the host operating system—all using Node as a teaching guide.
This book is organized into three parts.