420-317-ah | Node Example

This project gives an idea of what a the express+deno hello world project looks like in node js.

Technical decision

As node.js does not run typescript natively, we need to compile the typescript code into javascript.

We had multiple options for the bundler but we went for esbuild. esbuild is fast, and relyable, moreover the project documentation is quite good.

flowchart LR
  A["TypeScript Files\nlocated in src directory"] --> B["esbuild"]
  B --> C["compiled javascript\nlocated in dist directory"]

All the source code is location in the src directory. Each time the source code is modified, it needs to be re-compiled and re-executed.

Compiling the source code from typescript to javascript is quite easy.

npm run build

Before running the project, it is important to compile the source code. Once this is done, it is possible to run the program via npm or via node.

npm run build

node dist/main.js

When developping the project, it is nice to be able to continuously compile the typescript code into javascript.

npm run build:dev

Then, one can use the the nodejs --watch parameter to restart the webserver each time the javascript source changes.

node --watch dist/main.js

flowchart LR
  A["TypeScript files"] --npm run build:dev--> B["JavaScript files"]
  B --"node --watch"--> C["Running Server"]