Microsoft brings Node.js to Windows 10 IoT Core

World is continuously moving towards change and this change can be varied to technical to technological. Moreover due to increasing globalization, rate of competition is also increasing. In order to compete high with cloud and mobile computing, Microsoft is making investments in the Internet of Things (IOT). Hence, company has launched a novice support to bring Node.js to the Windows 10 IoT Core Insider Preview.

Introduction to Windows 10 IoT Core

An IoT is an open source for server-side and networking applications. The new edition of windows aims at devices ranging from gateways to large industries like robotics. IoT core is designed in a manner that will have low barrier to entry and it will help in easy building of professional grade devices.

Update on Node.js for Windows 10 IoT

Since developers are unable to use Node.js on ARM(WoA) windows devices, it has decided to take advantage of Node.js by running it with chakra javascript engine, as it is a part of operating system in windows 10. Use of built in chakra engine not only enables it to bring first-class universal support to Node.js apps, it also reduces the impact of disk footprint while executing Node.js.

It is also being planned to work closely with the node foundation, the Node.js Technical Committee, IO.js contributors and the community in order to participate and discuss about creating JavaScript engine-agnostic hosting APIs for Node.js. This gives developers a choice of the JavaScript engine which they want to use in their Node.js workflow, to succeed across all platforms and device while making Node.js

How and Why Microsoft plans to bring Node.js to Windows 10 IoT

The target of Microsoft is to make Windows 10 as the next generation of connected devices, and for this, the company is planning to bring Node.js to the core of its Internet of Things (IoT) platform.

Node.js is in early development stage and therefore in order to enable Chakra as Node.js’ JavaScript engine, the company will add a wrapper between the JavaScript runtime hosting APIs and V8 hosting APIs This upgrade will help developers to use Node.js on any Windows 10 device and it will also help them to choose between universal windows apps and classic windows.

It will enable to bring following changes

To run Node.js as a Classic Windows application on any device running Windows 10
Node.js to be hosted inside a Universal Windows application, which can run on all Windows10 devices
To give full access to UWP APIs from Node.js applications
Visual Studio debugging of Node.js applications on Windows 10

Advantage of Node.js

If majority of IoT is powered by windows 10, then it will create large opportunity for their Cloud Computing division. It will empower developers to build universal apps that can work across all platforms through the cloud.