Programming Visually With Node-RED: Wiring Up The Internet Of Things With Ease

BY JESUS DARIO RIVERA - FREELANCE SOFTWARE ENGINEER @ TOPTAL

Writing programs in text works, and in most cases it works well. However, the ability to express programs visually is often desirable. Being able to design the flow of information through various components of a larger system is often all that is needed. Visual programming tools are also lenient towards anyone who is new to programming and struggling to handle various concepts like variables, pointers, signals, scopes, and so on.

Node-RED is a tool for programming visually. It displays relations and functions visually, and allows the user to program without having to type a language. Node-RED is a browser-based flow editor where you can add or remove nodes and wire them together in order to make them communicate with each other.

In Node-RED, every node is one of the following two types: an inject node or a function node. Inject nodes produce a message without requiring any input and push the message to the next node connected to it. Function nodes, on the other hand, take an input and perform some work on it. With a plethora of these nodes to choose from, Node-RED makes wiring together hardware devices, APIs, and online services easier than ever.

For detailed information about this project follow the link.
https://www.toptal.com/nodejs/programming-visually-with-node-red