How to Create Your First Node.js Application?

by Arpit Vasani

Like everyone else in software development heard about nodeJS at least once due to its popularity among developers and enterprise organizations. Let’s put those statistics to work and try our self is it that easy and robust?

Step 1: Installation

I am starting up fresh here. So let’s install node js into our machine. You can skip this step if you already have it installed.

These are the things we’ll need to develop in node.js

1. Node.js setup
2. VScode

Goto https://nodejs.org  and select version you like to install. I recommend using LTS(Long Time Support) versions so that I don’t run into the environment-related issue in the future. It will automatically start installing the version based on your operating system.

VScode is a lightweight editor from Microsoft. I’d recommend it but if you have any other editor already installed it will work as well.

Step 2: Setup a directory

Let’s create/find a find directory to work on. I will name it a tutorial for now. and open terminal/command prompt window. open the same directory in VScode(or your editor) as well.

Step 3: create a file and start coding

Select File > New file and save it as index.js

Just to test the setup we will do Hello world!

console.log("Hello world !!");

Let’s test it.

It works !!

Let’s do something complex and useful as a project. Let’s create an endpoint and call it.

Adding some constants

const http = require('http');
const port = 3000;

const requestHandler = function() {
  console.log(request.url);
  response.end('Hello Node.js Server!')
};

Creating a server

const server = http.createServer(requestHandler);

server.listen(port, function(err){
    if (err) {
        return console.log('something bad happened', err)
    }
    console.log('server is listening on' + port)
});

const http = require('http');
const port = 3000;

const requestHandler = function() {
  console.log(request.url);
  response.end('Hello Node.js Server!')
};
const server = http.createServer(requestHandler);

server.listen(port, function(err){
    if (err) {
        return console.log('something bad happened', err)
    }
    console.log('server is listening on' + port)
});

Summary

By making a simple server using 12 lines of easy code seems easy for developers and if you have a cloud instance, you can comfortably host this on it. So yeah Nodejs is simple and easy.

Arpit Vasani

Arpit Vasani is a lead Mobile App Developer at MindTech Consultancy. He is an enthusiastic and professional application developer. He quickly grasps new idea and concept to develop innovative and creative solutions to problems. He can work well on own initiative and can demonstrate the high levels of motivation required to meet the tightest of deadlines.

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