Getting Started

Before you can use hackshell, you'll need to take care of three simple steps:

1. You must have Node.js v6.9 and NPM installed on your system.
2. hackshell (probably) needs to be "transpiled" into a usable bundle

If you're unfamiliar with these products, Node.js provides a standalone JavaScript environment (leveraging the V8 JavaScript engine used in the Google Chrome web-browser), enabling systems to execute JavaScript code. In the last several years, Node has become something of a sensation and today powers many popular servers, websites, and development tools, among other things. NPM is a package manager (similar to apt-get in Ubuntu) for JavaScript. Typically packaged with Node, NPM enables developers to easily access a massive collection of JavaScript applications and modules, and create and distribute projects which depend on them without distributing all of the dependencies or requiring users to perform complicated configuration procedures.

I highly recommend installing Node and NPM by using a "Node version manager" - doing so allows you to run JavaScript software intended to be used with any version of of Node, and allows you to write your own code for the version of your choice. If you're using Windows, take a look at nvm-windows or nodist (my personal preference). For linux and Mac systems using the bash shell, nvm tends to be the go-to option.

After installing a Node version manager, install Node 6.9:

• Using nodist, open up a CMD or Powershell console and run nodist + 6.9
• Using NVM, open up a bash console and run nvm install 6.9