Invented by J. Paul Morrison in the 1970s, flow-based programming
is a way of describing an application’s behavior as a network of black-boxes, or
“nodes” as they are called in Node-RED. Each node has a well-defined purpose; it
is given some data, it does something with that data and then it passes that
data on. The network is responsible for the flow of data between the nodes.
It is a model that lends itself very well to a visual representation and makes
it more accessible to a wider range of users. If someone can break down a problem
into discrete steps they can look at a flow and get a sense of what it is doing;
without having to understand the individual lines of code within each node.
Runtime/Editor
Node-RED consists of a Node.js based runtime that you point a web browser at to
access the flow editor. Within the browser you create your application by dragging
nodes from your palette into a workspace and start to wire them together. With a
single click, the application is deployed back to the runtime where it is run.
The palette of nodes can be easily extended by installing new nodes created by
the community and the flows you create can be easily shared as JSON files.
History
Node-RED started life in early 2013 as a side-project by Nick O’Leary and Dave
Conway-Jones of IBM’s Emerging Technology Services group.
What began as a proof-of-concept for visualising and manipulating mappings
between MQTT topics, quickly became a much more general tool that could be easily
extended in any direction.
It was open-sourced in September 2013 and has been developed in the open ever
since, culminating in it being one of the founding projects of the JS Foundation
in October 2016.
In 2019, the Node.js Foundation merged with the JS Foundation to form the
OpenJS Foundation.
Why is it called Node-RED? The name was a light-hearted play on words
sounding like 'Code Red'. It stuck and was a great improvement on whatever it was
called in the first few days.
The 'Node' part reflects both the flow/node programming model as well as the
underlying Node.JS runtime. We never did come to a conclusion
on what the 'RED' part stands for. "Rapid Event Developer" was one suggestion,
but we've never felt compelled to formalise anything.
We stick with 'Node-RED'.
If you need to cite the project in a paper, please use the following information:
Name
Node-RED
Author
OpenJS Foundation & Contributors
URL
If you are citing the project in general, use the project website URL - https://nodered.org. If you are citing a particular version, use either the website, or find the release page on GitHub for the version you are citing.
Node-RED: Low-code programming for event-driven applications.
Copyright OpenJS Foundation and Node-RED contributors. All rights reserved. The OpenJS Foundation has registered trademarks and uses trademarks. For a list of trademarks of the OpenJS Foundation, please see our Trademark Policy and Trademark List. Trademarks and logos not indicated on the list of OpenJS Foundation trademarks are trademarks™ or registered® trademarks of their respective holders. Use of them does not imply any affiliation with or endorsement by them.
