The Forgotten Joy of `node app.js`

There used to be a moment, ten years or so ago, when you could go from "I have an idea" to "I have a running web server" in about thirty seconds: // app.js const express = require ( ' express ' ) const app = express () app . get ( ' / ' , ( req , res ) => res . send ( ' hello ' )) app . listen ( 3000 ) node app.js That was the whole thing. One file. One command. You could paste it into a Slack message. You could drop it in a Gist and someone could run it. A tiny webhook receiver, a debug dashboa