node-course

The Complete Node.js Developer Course (3rd Edition) - my workspace

Development notes

• The course instructor recommended using Visual Studio Code as the IDE. I did so when I took the course.
• The project files "package.json" and "package-lock.json" are initially generated for you, but these SHOULD be committed to Git along with source code.

Initialization notes

• You will need to run the command 'npm install' after cloning this Git repo. The npm utililty will download and install all the third-party modules these tutorial projects depend on.
• When creating a new node project, first create the root project directory, then do "npm init -y" to initialize the skeleton project structure.
  • Add specific npm packages as project dependencies using a command like this example: npm i [email protected]

Example of adding an npm package to my node project

Let's say I wanted to add the third-party 'yargs' package to my project, locked to version 12.0.2. I would execute the following command in Windows PowerShell:

npm i [email protected]

This will download yargs 12.0.2, along with its dependencies, to my local machine. It will also update the 'package.json' file in my project with the new dependency on 'yargs'.

reference: https://www.npmjs.com/package/yargs

Various references related to course material

• Site for 'weather app' source data: https://darksky.net/dev
• Chrome extension: "JSON Formatter" (https://github.com/callumlocke/json-formatter | http://goo.gl/ZDLWY0)
• "Express" is an important node package for serving up web pages (http://expressjs.com)

Issues when running locally on Windows 10

nodemon

When I reached the section on using the 'nodemon' module, I got the following error message in PowerShell:

nodemon.ps1 cannot be loaded because running scripts is disabled on this system. For more information, see about_Execution_Policies at https:/go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=135170.

I went to URL from the error message found there are several options for configuring your Windows 10 machine to allow script execution. Run the following command in PowerShell to see what execution policies are currently set on your machine:

Get-ExecutionPolicy -List

I opted to allow script execution for my user account only. This can easily be changed later when I'm finished running node.js locally.

Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned -Scope CurrentUser

debugger

This issue happened when 'debugger' was added inside a function in the 'notes' app, and the following command was used to run node:

node inspect app.js add --title="abc" --body="123"

The Windows PowerShell displayed this error message in the terminal, and then the app crashed:

Timeout (2000) waiting for 127.0.0.1:9229 to be free

The instructor recommended using the following alternative command line as a workaround to this Windows-related bug:

node --inspect-brk app.js add --title="abc" --body="123"

Now I am able to open a Chrome browser and go to URL 'chrome://inspect/' to debug my node application.