app.js doesn't work

Are you using node app.js to run the file directly? Or are you using nodemon?

Where is your node_modules folder and package.json file located?

That's awesome news Sean! I'm glad to hear that you were able to work it out :)

I can't tell you how many times this particular issue has bitten me. There's nothing more frustrating then making a change to a file and then not seeing that change take effect. It's enough to drive a person crazy!

Thanks for being a student and I hope you enjoy the rest of the course.

~James

Hi Sean. You are welcome and credit to James for his meticulous approach. Our choice of code editor often comes down to simple personal preference. As a Windows user I opted for Microsoft's Visual Studio Code (VSC) and I even use this on my Mac too. One feature I use all the time is that when I open a project locally, I always open a terminal (or terminals) within VSC meaning that I am always working in the correct folder. I just downloaded Brackets expecting to find a way to do this in there too. It maybe possible but I couldn't find it. In fact, reading the help notes it does say... "Using your own backend — Make sure your local server is already running, serving files from the same folder Brackets is editing" which suggest to me that perhaps it is not possible. i.e. the pressure is on you to ensure you are using the same folder in 2 separate apps. This is not such an overhead if you just have one project open, but once you have 2 or 3, confusion can creep in.

You also posed the question why some Treehouse courses do not come with Workspaces populated. It could be James is better placed to answer this but one issue I can see is that with node projects where one can be installing multiple npm packages, there could be a diskspace and/or performance issue for Treehouse workspaces and they would prefer the students work on the code locally. That said, you can still create your own Workspace and choose 'Node.js' for 'Pick an environment to start from'. You will then find that 'Pick an existing workspace or template to start from' automatically gets populated with 'Node.js Workspace'

Happy coding :)

Please try changing your app.js file to this:

const express = require("express");

const app = express();

app.get("/", (request, response) => {
  response.send("I love Treehouse!");
});

app.listen(3000, () => console.log('Listening on port 3000!'));

Save the app.js file and run node app.js from the command line. Then let me know what you see in the console and try to access your app using http://localhost:3000/.

Interesting! You should have seen in the console the output "Listening on port 3000!".

For the next step in the debugging process, I'd like to confirm that your current directory in the console contains the files that you're editing in your code editor. If you run the cd command, what is your current directory? If you run the dir command, do you see the files you expect?

Also, what are you using for a code editor?

If that's the case, I would have expected to have seen them in the dir command output. Here's what I get in the console when I run the dir command:

C:\Users\james\Desktop\test>dir
 Volume in drive C is Windows
 Volume Serial Number is 00C1-AED2

 Directory of C:\Users\james\Desktop\test

03/16/2018  03:15 PM    <DIR>          .
03/16/2018  03:15 PM    <DIR>          ..
03/16/2018  03:16 PM               213 app.js
03/16/2018  03:14 PM    <DIR>          node_modules
03/16/2018  03:14 PM            13,039 package-lock.json
03/16/2018  03:15 PM               266 package.json
               3 File(s)         13,518 bytes
               3 Dir(s)  276,728,557,568 bytes free

If you're not seeing the node_modules folder and the package.json file in the same folder as your app.js file, I'd try running the following commands:

npm init -y
npm install express

Then run your app again with:

node app.js

After your app has started, you should see "Listening on port 3000!" output to the console. Then open a browser and browse to "http://localhost:3000/".

Sorry my confusion, but in a previous post, you showed the output of the dir command as:

Volume in Drive C has no label.
Volume Serial Number is 1809-B0BB

Directory of C:\Users\users\treehouse

10/03/2018 00:49     <DIR>     .
10/03/2018 00:49     <DIR>     ..
10/03/2018 00:47                    82 app.js
                          1 File(s)           82 bytes
                         2 Dir(s)            793,784,967,168 bytes free

I'm not seeing the node_modules folder or the package.json file in that output. I'm not sure why you wouldn't see those items listed in the dir command's output if they were actually there.

If you open the path C:\Users\users\treehouse in File Explorer, what do you see listed for the contents of the treehouse folder?

From the command prompt, could you please run the dir command again and reply back with all of the output? Also, try running more package.json, and include the output of that command as well.

Thanks so much for your patience!

Okay, I believe that your current folder in the command prompt window isn't the SAME folder that you're viewing in File Explorer. The path of the folder in your command prompt window is "C:\Users\user\treehouse\" (taken directly from the output you gave in your previous post). Please double check that path against the path that's displayed in your File Explorer window. They should match.

My guess is that you've been editing the files that you see in File Explorer using Brackets, but running Node in the command prompt window against a different app.js file.

From the command prompt window, you can run the command cd C:\Users\users\Desktop\treehouse (guessing the path a bit there) to browse to the folder that's showing in File Explorer.

You can also open a command prompt window from File Explorer. Here are some of the ways to do that: http://www.zdnet.com/article/windows-10-tip-the-fastest-smartest-ways-to-open-a-command-prompt/