Node JS and React

So what is Node JS and what role does it play in all this?

Node JS, in a nutshell, is a tool that enables Javascript to become a truly full-stack language. Node JS gives you the ability to run custom web servers allowing you to run scripts and perform tasks server-side apposed to the client. Formally known as webJS then Node, now commonly referred to as NodeJS runs our server-side code utilizing chromes V8 Javascript engine a high-performance JavaScript engine, written in C++.

Determining whether Node JS is suitable for your project is a whole subject in itself so I highly recommend watching this video.

Whats React and do I need to know node JS in order to use it?

Well you may ask why I have included both these subjects in a single post, it is certainly not necessary to include both of these technologies in the same project however there are very interesting benefits to using both in combination. Using NodeJS and React in combination offers up some pretty convenient workflows, NodeJs is a great tool in itself however one of the benefits of installing it alongside React is the NPM package manager. With NPM it not only allows us to download modules of open source code to help grow your project it also allows us to easily run local servers to…