What exactly does “/usr/bin/env node” do at the beginning of node files?

Question

I had seen this line #!/usr/bin/env node at the beginning of some examples in nodejs and I had googled without finding any topic that could answer

Answer 1

Short answer: It is the path to the interpreter.

EDIT (Long Answer): The reason there is no slash before "node" is because you can not always guarantee the reliability of #!/bin/ . The "/env" bit makes the program more cross-platform by running the script in a modified environment and more reliably being able to find the interpreter program.

You do not necessarily need it, but it is good to use to ensure portability (and professionalism)