Introduction

We installed Node in the Installing Node and npm section of Chapter 1, Working with JavaScript Development Tools, but that was only for setting npm up. Node can be used not only as a web server, which is the most common usage, but also to write shell line commands or even desktop applications, as we'll see in Chapter 13, Creating a Desktop Application with Electron. However, some configuration and development practices are common for all those environments, and that will be the objective of this chapter. In this chapter, we will get started on Node development.