Intro to Node Setting up a Node Application

Learning objective: By the end of this lesson, students will be able to set up a basic Node application.

Initializing a Node project

1. Ensure you’re in the root of your project: In your terminal, you should be inside the intro-to-node directory.

2. Project initialization:

   From here you have two options. The first is a more customized initialization which walks you through each step and allows you to fill in details. The second is a quick initialization which automatically provides the default values.

   You can change any of these details later, no matter which option you choose. Continue with either a. or b. below. Choose only one path.

   a. Custom initialization:

   • Run the following command in your project’s root directory:

     npm init
     

   • This initializes your project, prompting you to fill in details like project name and version. For this project, press Enter to accept each of the default values.

   b. Quick initialization:

   • Run the following command in your project’s root directory:

     npm init -y
     

   • This automatically accepts all default values without prompting.

   🧠 The result of either sequence is the creation of a package.json file in your project. Open the file and check out the default values that were included. For example, the name of our project is intro-to-node, and the version is 1.0.0.

Understanding package.json

The package.json file in a Node project fills many roles, but has two primary purposes that we’ll concern ourselves with for now:

• Lists project metadata: Details like your project’s name, version, and description.
• Lists dependencies: It lists all the external packages your project needs to function.

📚 A dependency is an external library or module essential for your project to function. When you install a package and use its methods in your code, your application relies on that package to operate correctly, hence the term ‘dependency’. Dependencies offer pre-built functions, making development more efficient and reducing the need to write duplicate code.

Think of package.json in your Node project like a collection of details about a party. It holds all of the details like the name of the party, a description, where the party is, and who’s throwing it. A party might also have collection of things it needs to actually be a party (its dependencies) - fun banners, food, and drinks.