What you'll learn

Tim Caswell (@creationix) is an open source trailblazer. He was one of the first users and contributors to Node.js. He started howtonode.org where many people learned how to use early versions of Node.js. He now works at Cloud9, a browser-based IDE. He has authored over a hundred open source projects. We gave Tim the task of building a simple function that parses directions, durations, and distances from a set of instructions for trail hikers. He built a simple Node.js web app to demonstrate the feature. You'll see Tim work with: lightweight, high performance Node.js web servers (his final app runs in only 1ms!), building middleware, writing a test suite with built-in modules, using Apache bench for benchmarking, adding structure to an application as it develops, debugging, and the good feeling of writing Open Source software.