Colby Hemond
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Hello, Node!

Colby Hemond

Colby Hemond

June 12, 2022
2 minutes

Move over Hello World, say wassup to Hello Node!

Our goal is to output "Hello Node!" to the terminal console by running the following command: node index.js. Here are the steps we will go through to do this:

  • Create a folder to hold our files
  • Create the index.js file
  • Add content to the index.js file

Create a folder to hold our files

First things first, let's whip open that terminal. Make sure you are in a location that you want to create your folder. A quick list of commands to help us navigate the terminal:

  • ls – list all files/folders in current directory
  • cd /folder_name – change directory into folder folder_name
  • cd ../ – go back to the parent directory of the current directory

Creating our folder

Now we can start to use Node’s file system fs while getting the project set up. While we’ll use this in the command line, we could also write these in a JS file.

Create a folder to hold our files:

node -e "fs.mkdirSync('hello_node')"

References:

Create the index.js file

Navigating to the correct location

Use ls to list the files in the directory—we should see the newly created hello_node folder.

Move into the new folder:

cd hello_node

Creating the file

Create a new file index.js:

node -e "fs.writeFileSync('index.js', '')"

This creates an empty file named index.js.

Reference:

Add content to the index.js file

Now add some content to the file using the same writeFileSync method:

node -e "fs.writeFileSync('index.js', \"console.log('Hello, Node!')\")"

This writes console.log('Hello, Node!') into the file.

Now execute the file from the terminal:

node index.js

Which outputs:
Hello, Node!

What do we get out of doing this?

There are a few important fundamentals being practiced here. It’s not just about checking off a “getting started” project:

  1. Practicing terminal navigation
  2. Getting familiar with Node’s file system (fs) library
  3. Executing Node commands in the terminal

Sure, you could right-click your way through a GUI or write node -e "console.log('Hello, Node!')" for instant output—but we’re building muscle memory here.

Getting comfortable with these small steps helps you become fluent with Node workflows and CLI-based dev.

nodejs
development