Book Image

Practical Node-RED Programming

By : Taiji Hagino
5 (1)
Book Image

Practical Node-RED Programming

5 (1)
By: Taiji Hagino

Overview of this book

Node-RED is a free and open source flow-based programming tool used to handle IoT data that allows programmers of any level to interconnect physical I/O, cloud-based systems, databases, and APIs to build web applications without code. Practical Node-RED Programming is a comprehensive introduction for anyone looking to get up to speed with the Node-RED ecosystem in no time. Complete with hands-on tutorials, projects, and self-assessment questions, this easy-to-follow guide will help you to become well versed in the foundations of Node-RED. You’ll learn how to use Node-RED to handle IoT data and build web applications without having to write complex code. Once you’ve covered the basics, you’ll explore various visual programming techniques and find out how to make sample flows as you cover web development, IoT development, and cloud service connections, and finally build useful real-world applications. By the end of this book, you’ll have learned how to use Node-RED to develop a real-world application from scratch, which can then be implemented in your business.
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
1
Section 1: Node-RED Basics
6
Section 2: Mastering Node-RED
11
Section 3: Practical Matters

Chapter 2: Setting Up the Development Environment

In this chapter, you will install the tools that you'll need to use Node-RED. This extends not only to Node-RED itself, but to its runtime, Node.js, and how to update both Node-RED and Node.js.

Node-RED released its 1.0 milestone version in September 2019. This reflects the maturity of the project, as it is already being widely used in production environments. It continues to be developed and keeps up to date by making changes to the underlying Node.js runtime. You can check the latest status of Node-RED's installation at https://nodered.org/docs/getting-started/.

There are a number of installation guides on the Node-RED official website, such as local, Raspberry Pi, Docker, and major cloud platforms.

In this chapter, you will learn how to install Node-RED on your local computer, whether you are running it on Windows, Mac, or on a Raspberry Pi. We will cover the following topics:

  • Installing npm and Node.js...