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Installfest Step 1.1: Node.js & Express Stack

Most of the coding work we do in weeks 3 to 5 will be driven by the back-end web development framework Express. We'll install Express individually in each project we create. For now, we'll install the other tools we'll use along with Express.

Plan Overview

  1. Install Node.js, a platform for back-end web development with the JavaScript programming language.
  2. Install MongoDB, the database we'll use with our Node.js and Express stack.

Node.js

Note: when copying the code snippets, please exclude the $ as you paste and run the code into your terminal. The dollar sign $ is simply an indicator of the logged-in user's terminal prompt in the examples.

  1. Install Node.js with Homebrew by running the following command in the Terminal:
$ brew install node

  1. Run the Terminal command which node to check that Node.js was installed. You should see a file path. The Terminal command node changes your Terminal into a Javascript REPL ("Read Evaluate Print Loop"), like the right-hand side of repl.it. Type ctrl + c twice to quit out of the REPL and return to the normal Terminal commands.

  2. Run the Terminal command which npm to check that NPM is installed. The Node Package Manager, used through various npm commands, is a lot like Homebrew, except we'll use it for Node.js-specific tools instead of for general Mac tools. NPM packages are often called "node modules."

Nodemon

Nodemon (short for "node monitor") will make our Node.js workflow more efficient.

  1. Install nodemon globally with the following Terminal command:
$  npm install -g nodemon

MongoDB

MonogDB is a database that stores information as easy to read "documents". We'll use it to store data in our Node.js and Express stack.

  1. Use Homebrew to update all our brew packages.
$ brew update
  1. Run brew install for MongoDB.
$ brew install mongodb
  1. Then we'll need a directory for MongoDB to save data.
$ sudo mkdir -p /data/db

You will be prompted to enter your system password here. This is the password you use to log into your computer.

Sidenote: When you use this sudo command, you are saying "superuser do" which can force your computer to perform the command you entered, even if it's a bad idea. This is why you're prompted to insert a password. Terminal makes sure your computer is secure and that you're sure about the command you're about to execute forcefully.

relevant xkcd Source: xkcd

  1. Finally we'll want to make sure we have permission to read and write to this directory.
$ sudo chown -R $USER /data/db

Again, you'll need to enter your system password.

  1. Run two commands to check whether the install worked. You should see a file path after each command.
$ which mongod
$ which mongo

If this has worked correctly, you will see /usr/local/bin/mongod and /usr/local/bin/mongo respectively as the outputs from terminal.

RoboMongo

RoboMongo is a GUI (Graphical User Interface) tool to let us see the data in our Mongo databases. Let's install that now.

  1. Go to https://robomongo.org/download and download the free (community) edition.
  2. Install it!

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