- Practice using the Terminal
- Install and use Node.JS for a project
- Learn how to install and use simple NPM packages (using Yarn)
- Practice more Javascript coding and control flow
- Built functional Hangman game that accounts for valid/invalid user inputs.
- Found NPM packages useful and easy to install. Good documentation also made them easy to use and good practice working with other people's code.
- Got more experience using Regex to determine valid user inputs. Think I am finally starting to wrap my head around Regex.
- Learnt about JS Promise Object
- Learning and practicing Markdown by writing my first ReadMe documentation here.
I've been using Visual Studio Code for my programming environment to date which has an easy to use intergrated Terminal. From there I installed Node.JS.
To run a Node JS file, I first had to use the commmand line to create a directory and javascript file to work with and run:
$ mkdir Hangman
$ cd Hangman
$ touch game.js
Once I created my game.js file, I could open it within VSCode and add the code below:
console.log('hello world');
Switching back to the terminal, I make sure I am in the right Hangman directory and type node <filename> to run the JS file, in this case called game.js
$ cd Hangman
$ node game.js
And voila, hello world will display in the Terminal. Now I was ready to attempt some coding.
According to their website, NPM is a package registry of "almost half a million packages of free, reusable code — the largest software registry in the world." They make it easy to find, download and use existing JS code, by packaging it up into "plug in and play" type modules.
When you install an NPM package or module into your code directory, it becomes a code "dependency". That it, your code is dependent on it to run properly. NPM also makes it easy to check for package updates and keep things running smoothly, so it's best described as a Package Manager.
While NPM is automatically installed with Node.JS, it was recommended that I use Yarn instead as it has advantages and improvements to NPM. To be perfectly honest, I don't quite know enough about coding to understand the pros and cons, but Yarn was easy to use and install (with Homebrew).
In practice, when you install packages they will appear under a node_modules directiory in your Hangman directory. I recommend added this folder to your .gitignore file. You should ignore the files as well.
To note, Yarn installs the packages locally to your directory, not globally, so you will need to re-install your favourite NPM packages in each project directory you want to use them in.
Vist https://www.npmjs.com/ and search for a package you might want to use. I used the three below in my Hangman Game:
- Chalk - Terminal string styling (ie. colors, italics, bold, etc)
- Prompt Promise - user-input (command prompt, confirm, multiline, password) as promises
- hangman-ascii - hangman ascii artwork
The NPM package page will have documention on how to install, call upon, and use each package.
For example, to install Chalk navigate to your project directory in the Terminal and type:
- Using npm:
$ npm install chalk - Using yarn:
$ yarn add chalk
The package should instally in a couple seconds and a few lines of documentation will be printed. You are now ready to start using them.
To use the package within a JS file, first you need to require the package and assign it to a constant variable:
const chalk = require('chalk');My three packages were "required" at the top of my JS hangman game file like so:
const prompt = require('prompt-promise');
const chalk = require('chalk');
const hangmanFigure = require('hangman-ascii');Once the packaged has been required, then you can use it per the examples in the documentation.
For example, for Chalk:
console.log(chalk.blue('Hello world!'));I'll elaborate a bit more on using the Prompt-Promise package in the next section about JS Promise Objects.
To be cont'd...