I was using the node editor in an earlier project and I found it fairly easy to follow, so I opened up a new one to experiment. I added a plane, created a material and went to node editor, where I was completely dumbfounded. The nodes I expected to see with the diffuse and output weren't there, and the material changed to black. Not only that, but I couldn't even add any shader node!
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You can't use material nodes in Blender Internal. Try changing your mode to "Cycles" in the drop down that has "Blender Render" in it right now.
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$\begingroup$ while the blender internal has some limitation in the node editor over the cycles one, you can use it $\endgroup$ – Virgil Sisoe Nov 19 '18 at 3:23