I'm just starting with Node.js but I have experience with client-side JavaScript and PHP/Apache.
In your browser you can execute JS code from the developer console at any time. You can manipulate global vars and call global functions and methods. If I call console.log('Hello world!')
from the browser's developer console, it will log the message to the console I'm using, just like in a script you write.
In Node.js when you call console.log('Hello world!')
from within your "app", the result is logged as you'd expect, just like JS on the client-side. Can I do what I would do on the client-side?
My question is can I execute my own JS code from the command line like I would on the client-side, manipulating vars (such as the HTTP server, filesystem, etc.) and calling functions that are available in my app? I don't care why, I just want to know if I can do it.