Default Web

A general web template setup for node spikes and deep dives. Any forks in instruction will be labeled with Linux, Mac and Windows respectively. If you're running Mac, follow the Linux instructions and modify as needed. My assumption is that all Linux instructions should be POSIX compliant. For the few instructions that are absolutely Mac specific, you'll see a Mac header.

Prerequisites

Before begining, download the latest version of node and npm from https://nodejs.org/en/

Getting Started

We'll run some scripts in terminal/command prompt to complete our project folder setup.

Windows

in command prompt, run new-project.bat with the folder directory you want set up. For example new-project.bat ..\new-project will create a node project in a sibling folder to the current directory called new-project.

Linux and Mac

in the terminal, run new-project.sh with the folder directory you want set up. For example sh ./new-project.sh ../new-project will create a node project in a sibling folder to the current directory called new-project. If you have permission issues, run chmod +x ./new-project.sh and you should be good to go.

How To run the server

One approach is to run node raw via node server.js. If you wish you run through the package configuration, you can call npm run start and it will run the same command through server.js. test does not have any functionality at this time, but note that in a real world project, you would want unit tests and integration tests. This will be covered in a future project.

A few notes about Webpack

1. Webpack makes the assumption that your code is stored under root/src. This is included for readability, but if left out, it would default to assume it.
2. The config file is written by the developer of the project, so I included this as a starting point. Feel free to modify it as you see fit for your project.
3. webpack.config.js is read by default from the current directory where webpack is run, and by extension in the package.json file above, where npm run build is run.
4. Out of the box, webpack is not a requirement, but it helps organize your project and pulls your resources together into a distribution package if you configure it appropriately. If you're going to include more folders outside of the src folder, you'll want to include them in webpack.config.js

For more information on webpack for Node, see https://webpack.js.org/api/node/