process

In node, process is a special object that handles information and control for the running process such as environment, signals, and standard IO streams.

Of particular consequence is the process.nextTick() implementation that interfaces with the event loop.

In browserify the process implementation is handled by the process module which just provides process.nextTick() and little else.

Here's what process.nextTick() does:

setTimeout(function () { console.log('third');}, 0);process.nextTick(function () { console.log('second');});console.log('first');

This script will output:

firstsecondthird

process.nextTick(fn) is like setTimeout(fn, 0), but faster because setTimeout is artificially slower in javascript engines for compatibility reasons.