Writing Your First Web Server with Node.js: A Quick Start with the Express Framework

This article introduces the method of building a web server using Node.js and Express. Based on the V8 engine, Node.js enables JavaScript to run on the server side, while Express, as a popular framework, simplifies complex tasks such as routing and request handling. For environment preparation, first install Node.js (including npm), and verify it using `node -v` and `npm -v`. Next, create a project folder, initialize it with `npm init -y`, and install the framework with `npm install express`. The core step is writing `server.js`: import Express, create an instance, define a port (e.g., 3000), use `app.get('/')` to define a GET request for the root path and return text, then start the server with `app.listen`. Access `http://localhost:3000` to test it. Extended features include adding more routes (e.g., `/about`), dynamic path parameters, returning JSON (`res.json()`), and hosting static files (`express.static`). The key steps are summarized as: installing tools, creating a project, writing routes, and starting the test, laying the foundation for subsequent learning of middleware, dynamic routing, etc.