WebDev 101: How to use npm and Yarn

Reference

• Node - allows you to run JS on your machine without running it in the browser.
  • You can write JS that interacts with your computer in ways your browser cannot, like host a REST web server, write files to the hard drive, interact with the OS.
  • Can interface with C APIs.
• npm
  • Registry - the servers and databases that host the packages with their specific named packages.
  • The CLI - runs on your computer to install and manage the packages on your local disk.
• Yarn - it does not host its own registry. If you install a library using yarn, you’ll use the NPM registry and the yarn CLI tool.
• Using Node
  • node index.js to execute files.
  • nodemon is the library that listens to file changes and restarts the process whenever any of your dependencies change.
• Do not commit node_modules: It bloats the size of the repository, slows down the cloning of the project, makes it difficult/impossible to do analytics on the code, and removes the potential to install security updates with semver ranges.
• You do commit package-lock.json, so CI pipelines run the same versions of dependencies you’re utilising on your local machine.