What do I have till now?

After Node.js is istalled, described in my previous post, I can simply run this command:

stoimenpopov:~# node server.js

and this will start the server with the code within server.js. But what’s the code of server.js?

Following the instructions of Node’s homepage and most of the tutorials I’ve found, I can simply copy/paste the code from the first lines of Node’s page:

var http = require('http');
http.createServer(function (req, res) {
  res.writeHead(200, {'Content-Type': 'text/plain'});
  res.end('Hello World\n');
}).listen(8124, "127.0.0.1");
console.log('Server running at http://127.0.0.1:8124/');

There are several things I find interesting in this code, making it different from JavaScript as we know it. First of all what is

var http = require(‘http’)

and why I need it? What is the purpouse of 8124 and 127.0.0.1?

Node is built in modules and to use one of them you must first include it with require. Just like the example above with require(‘http’). In the same manner you can include every module of Node.

What are the Node’s modules are pretty well described in the API page. Well I’d like to say that the API page is quite insufficient. That is very bad, cause most of the code you’ll need developing a node.js applicatoin isn’t described/explained there. Continue reading Diving into Node.js – Very First App →