Not sure why there are people who vote to close this question, when I think it is quite viable, Node.JS is a new server-side structure that is still in heavy development.
to answer your question may be a little difficult for me, since I don't know anything about Java, but I know a little about Node and use it on a regular basis while it is in development.
Node JS is basically an infrastructure built from several components built for speed, such as the Google Javascript Engine (V8), it was originally developed for Google Chrome, but released as an open source project.
Many developers took V8 and placed it on the server, combining it with custom libraries built into V8 to allow file I / O and network access.
So what is Node.JS
Node JS is basically the Googles V8 JavaScript engine as a language platform mixed with Lib Event, which is a method of using 1 thread to perform several tasks by creating events from the kernel.
The main use of Node is network functions, Ryan provided a really powerful HTTP library that helped her deal with web services, for which this is the main intention.
Why am I using NodeJS
I like Node JS simply because it is simple, fast and very modular, able to provide information, such as Files, Images, Text, to a web browser directly from server memory (RAM) in less than 10 lines, just helps to understand power is behind her.
For example, almost every web browser makes a request for favicon.ico , which is usually ~ 10KB. Now, if I had 100 requests per second, and each request requested my icon, my hard drive would have to find this file, blocking all other reads in average time.
I can simply load the data, save it inside a variable and send it to each client much faster than traditional methods.
What is the best part about Node.JS
The best part of Node.js personally is the concept, the idea of ​​simultaneously searching thousands of clients without blocking any other client is the driving force of speed, it all depends on speed, so Google V8, it’s called V8 for some reason, Lib Event, it Eliminates the requirement for thread downloads, which can be heavy on resources.
Beginning of work
It seems to me that you really didn’t have a game with Node.JS, and if you didn’t, then don’t offer it to you and play for several days, join IRC Chat and talk to some of the guys there, As a rule, there is a member of the nearest team who will help you.
You can simply install Node.JS on Ubuntu like this (In Bash):
if you don't have git
sudo apt-get install git-core
install Node JS:
cd /etc/ sudo git clone git://github.com/joyent/node.git cd node sudo ./configure sudo make sudo make install
make sure it is installed for verification
node --version
if you get a ready-to-go version, go to your home directory
cd ~/ mkdir Nodes cd Nodes/
create a simple file in the ~ / Nodes directory called test.js and start with it, you can run the code like this:
cd ~/Nodes node test.js
I wrote a short tutorial on configuring NodeJS, not only for myself, but for others who can read it and would like to configure it.