Creating an Express Application with Bun

In this tutorial, we will guide you through the process of setting up a new Express.js application using Bun, a powerful tool for bootstrapping Node.js projects. By following these steps, you'll have a solid foundation for building robust web applications with Express and TypeScript.

Step 1: Setting Up the Project Directory

First, navigate to your computer's desktop using the terminal and create a new directory for your Express.js app. You can achieve this with the following commands:

cd Desktop
mkdir express-with-bun

Here, we change our working directory to the desktop and create a new folder named "express-with-bun."

Step 2: Initializing the Project

Next, move into the newly created directory:

cd express-with-bun

Now, it's time to initialize our app using Bun:

bun init

Feel free to configure your package.json settings as needed during this step. For simplicity, we'll accept the default settings in this tutorial.

Step 3: Opening the Project in Your Code Editor

After successfully initializing the project, open it in your preferred code editor. In this example, we're using Visual Studio Code (VSCode), a popular choice among JavaScript developers. However, you're welcome to use any code editor that suits your workflow.

Upon opening the project in VSCode, you should see the following project structure:

---node_modules
---.gitignore
---bun.lock
---package.json
---README.md
---server.ts
---tsconfig.json

These files and folders are automatically generated when initializing a new Express app with Bun.

Step 4: Adding a Start Script

To run our application, we need to add a start script to the package.json file. Open package.json and include the following script:

    ...
    "scripts": {
		"start": "bun server.ts"
	},
    ...

This script will allow us to start our server easily with bun start.

Step 5: Installing Development and Dependency Packages

Since we're using TypeScript, we need to install some development and dependency packages. Run the following commands to add them:

bun add -D typescript ts-node-dev @types/express @types/cors

Additionally, add the necessary dependencies for our application:

bun add express mongoose cors mongodb dotenv

Step 6: Creating an Express Server

In the server.ts file, we'll create a simple Express server:

// server.ts file
import express from 'express'; // Import Express
 
const app = express(); // Create a new Express app
const PORT = 8080; // Define the port for our app on localhost
 
// Create a simple route returning a text response
app.get('/', (req, res) => {
  res.end('Hey, Bun is super fast!');
});
 
// Start the server on our machine
app.listen(PORT, () => {
  console.log(`App is running on port ${PORT} ✅`);
});

Step 7: Running the Server

Now, you can start your server on localhost and test your homepage using the following command:

bun start

You should see the message "App is running on port 8080" in your command line, indicating that your server is up and running.

Congratulations! You've successfully set up an Express.js application with Bun and TypeScript. You are now ready to create models and controllers for performing operations with your MongoDB database. In our next blog post, we'll cover how to implement simple CRUD operations and complete the code to create a basic TODO API for your frontend.

Stay tuned for more exciting developments in your Express journey! Happy Coding :)