February 21, 2020

Javascript - node.js

The idea here is to write and run the simplest possible programs using nothing more than node.js

A very simple node program

Remember that node is just javascript standing on its own two legs without having a browser wrapped around it. Let's begin with a one line program that prints "hello world". Put the following into a file hello.js
console.log ( "hey" );
Now type (at the command line) "node hello.js" and you should get:
hello world
It doesn't get much easier than that.

Using node as a web server

This is much simpler that it sounds. Put the following into a file "hello_server.js" Then run it as "node hello_server.js". This will start the program running as a server on port 8888. You can use either of the following to point your browser at this server: Either works because the machine "localhost" is almost always configured to be 127.0.0.1

There is a lot going on in this short file, but we are happy at this point to just ignore the details and be happy to be able to start and test a simple server.


Have any comments? Questions? Drop me a line!

Adventures in Computing / tom@mmto.org