setup.md

Introduction to The Windows CLI

Terms

1. Path: The location in the filesystem corresponding to a resource.
   • C:\Users\zachl\Documents\MSP\WS1\ is the path to this file on my hard drive.
   • C:\Users\ is the path which contains all of the user data on your machine.
2. Directory: A folder.
   • Folders end in \ (backslash) on Windows.
3. File: A file.
   • Files do not end in \
   • A file can contain text (.txt), a webpage (.html), be executable (.exe), etc...
4. Executable: A file containing compiled code.
   • Executables are runnable.
   • Every command run from the command prompt is an executable. We will be using node, cmd, npm, and others.
5. Working Directory: The context of an executable is very important. The working directory is the directory which the command prompt instance is currently in.

Command Line Interface

1. How to use it, and what are the analogous actions within a GUI?
2. Type cmd into your search bar.
3. Run the command prompt
4. cd displays the current path
5. cd <path> changes the working directory to that location.
6. dir lists all files and sub-directories in the working directory.
7. dir <path> lists all files and sub-directories inside
8. cd .. changs the working directory to be the current directory's parent directory
9. Presing tab will auto-fill partial paths
10. Run (or execute) an executable by typing <name of executable> in the cmd.

Install Node.js

1. Go to the node.js website
2. Download node for your platform
3. Install node
4. Test node by running:

   node -v
   

5. Test npm by running:

   npm
   

6. Congratulations. You've just run the node executable, and the npm executable. The node executable is found at C:\Program Files\nodejs\node.exe