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Node.js version confirmation

In the browser, we can head over to nodejs.org to grab the installer for the latest version of Node(as shown here). In this book, we'll use the most recent version, version 9.3.0:

It is important that you install a V8 version of Node.js. It doesn't have to be 4.0, it could be 1.0, but it is important it's on that V8 branch, because there is a ton of new features that come along with V8, including all of the features you might have come to love in the browser using ES6.

ES6 is the next version of JavaScript and it comes with a lot of great enhancements we'll be using throughout the book. If you look at the following image, Node.js Long Term Support Release Schedule (https://github.com/nodejs/LTS), you can see that the current Node version is V8, out in April 2017:

Before going further, I would like to talk about the Node release cycle. What I have in the preceding image is the official release cycle, this is released by Node. You'll notice that only next to the even Node numbers do you find the active LTS, the blue bar, and the maintenance bar. Now, LTS stands for long-term support, and this is the version that's recommended for most users. I'd recommend that you stick with the currently offered LTS option (Node v 8.9.4 LTS), though anything on the left-hand side will do, this is shown as the two green buttons on nodejs.org.

Now, as you can see, the major version numbers, bump every six months. Regardless of any sort of big overarching change, this happens like clockwork even if nothing drastic has changed. It's not like Angular where jumping from 1.0 to 2.0 was almost like using a completely different library. This is just not the case with Node, what you're getting from this book is the latest and greatest Node has to offer.