Node.js is a young yet promising project for writing server-side JavaScript. In this workshop we’ll build a basic Node.js server on our laptops and use WebSockets to build a simple realtime multiuser graphical environment.

As Node.js lends itself particularly well to a functional style of programming, we’ll take the opportunity to introduce basic functional programming. Finally, we’ll discuss some of the unique advantages of the NodeJS event-based model as well as its current limitations.

This workshop assumes you have basic familiarity with Javascript, as well as a server-side language (PHP, for example).

In order to allow us more time to code, we kindly ask that you have Node.js installed on your laptop (you’ll need to be running a local server). On OSX, you can download this install package and just double-click to install: https://sites.google.com/site/nodejsmacosx/

Still, If you can, we recommend using the Git methond mentioned on this official installation page: https://github.com/joyent/node/wiki/Installation