Serving static files

Anyone using Node to create a web server will need to respond intelligently to HTTP requests. A HTTP request to a web server for a resource expects some sort of response. A basic file static file server might look like this:

http.createServer(function(request, response) {
  if(request.method !== "GET") {
    return response.end("Simple File Server only does GET");
  }
  fs
  .createReadStream(__dirname + request.url)
  .pipe(response);
}).listen(8000);

This server services GET requests on port 8000, expecting to find a local file at a relative path equivalent to the URL path segment. We see how easy Node makes it for us to stream local file data, simply piping a ReadableStream into a WritableStream representing a client socket connection. This is an enormous amount of functionality to be safely implemented in a handful of lines.

Eventually a great deal more would be added, such as handling routines for standard HTTP methods, handling errors and malformed requests, setting...