Original subtitles

So now that you know the

absolute fundamentals of Node.JS.,

let's take the rest of the section

to talk a little bit about npm,

so the node package manager.

So the node package manager is a command line

interface app that automatically comes

included with Node JS

in which we use to install and manage

Open Source packages.

Now these packages that I just mentioned,

they usually come from the package repository

that is also npm.

So at npm.js, you can take a look

at all the modules or packages

that are included in the npm repository.

So npm is actually both the command line interface app

that we use to manage the packages

and also the repository itself.

And actually, it's the largest software

registry in the world,

no matter what language we're talking about.

And by the time of this recording,

it has about 800,000 packages.

So sometime, in the near future

it will probably have over a million packages

here on npm.

So, let's for example, search for express,

which is the node framework that we're going to use

throughout most of the rest of the course.

And so, for example,

you can then click on it,

and here you have all the information

about each of the modules.

So you can see that, for example,

this one is download almost eight million times

in the last week.

So you see that it's a hugely popular package.

Then, here, usually you have some documentation.

But for now, that doesn't really matter.

So for now, we're just interested in what npm actually is.

Probably, you have used npm, yourself,

before when working on front-end development.

Because these days, npm is actually not just used

for node development,

but really across the entire Java's stack.

So, for example, if you'll search for react,

it's also gonna be here.

So really, all these popular libraries

and frameworks,

they are all really on the npm registry.

Basically, npmjs.com is where all these packages are hosted.

Now, about the command line interface, itself,

it actually comes already pre-installed with NodeJS.

So, let's now actually start using it,

and go back to our project.

So here we have still our terminal open,

but I'm gonna quit now this process here,

so I hit control c and then clear the terminal.

Npm is a software that we basically use to manage

the third party Open Source packages that

we choose to include and use in our project.

And the first thing that they usually do

whenever we start a new project,

is to start with npm init.

So we use npm as the command and then init.

And this will basically create a package.jason file.

Which is kind of a configuration file of our project

where all kinds of data about the project is stored.

We're gonna see more about that once that is finished.

So npm init is now asking us a bunch of questions

as you see down here.

And, maybe, if you're not seeing it,

I will increase this a bit.

So, first thing that we need to specify

is the package name.

And this one is called node farm.

So we need to use a url friendly name here,

so that's why I have the hyphen.

And what you see here is the suggested name,

but I don't want the one in there,

so I just retype node farm here.

Then we have the version,

so we can just hit return here on this one.

And in the description, learning node js.

The entry point is the next.js,

but again, this doesn't really matter.

We don't have any test command,

so just hit return again.

Now we'll get keywords,

doesn't really matter again.

The author is me.

You can put your own name, of course,

and license and so,

one that's okay, to confirm that this is the file

that we want.

Actually, it created it right away here on this left side.

Bring it down again here.

So, indeed, this is our package Jason file,

with this very basic information

about the project for now.

But there is a lot of stuff that can be added

to this file and we will do so later in another project.

Also, right in the next video which is where we're gonna

installing packages.

And these packages are then also registered here

in this file so that we can keep tract of all the packages

that we're actually using.

So, in our next video we're then going to finally install

some real packages here.