Installing Node.js and npm

Node.js is a platform that allows us to write server-side applications with a client-side language that we're all familiar with—JavaScript. However, the real benefit of Node.js is that it uses an event-driven, nonblocking I/O model, which is perfect for building data-intensive, real-time applications. It means that with Node.js, we should be able to handle an incoming stream of tweets and process them as soon as they arrive; just what we need for our project.

Let's install Node.js. We'll be using version 8.7.0 because at the time of writing this book, that's the latest version of Node.js. Jest is a testing framework from Facebook that you'll learn about in Chapter 9, Testing Your React Application with Jest.

Download the installation package for your OS from one of these links:

• OS X: http://nodejs.org/dist/v8.7.0/node-v8.7.0.pkg
• Windows 64-bit: http://nodejs.org/dist/v8.7.0/node-v8.7.0-x64.msi
• Windows 32-bit: http://nodejs.org/dist/v8.7.0/node-v8.7.0-x86.msi

Run the downloaded package and follow the installation steps that Node.js will prompt you with. Once finished, check whether you have successfully installed Node.js. Open Terminal/Command Prompt, and type the following command:

node -v

The output is as follows (don’t worry if your version doesn’t match exactly):

V8.7.0

Node.js has a very rich ecosystem of modules that is available for us to use. A module is a Node.js application that you can reuse in your own Node.js application. At the time of writing, there are over 500,000 modules. How do you manage such a wide persity of Node.js modules? Meet npm, a package manager that manages Node.js modules. In fact, npm is shipped together with Node.js, so you've got it installed already. Type the following in Terminal/Command Prompt:

npm -v

You should see the following output (don’t worry if your version doesn’t match exactly):

5.5.1

You can learn more about npm at www.npmjs.com. Now we are ready to start with the installation of Node.js applications.