How to try the JS pipeline

There's a post out there on how to try the JavaScript pipeline operator in Node, but it's a little out of date. Babel removed its Stage presets, so the instructions given there won't work anymore. Here's what to do now.

First, make and navigate into a new directory, and run this:

$ npm init -y
$ npm install --save @babel/cli @babel/core @babel/plugin-proposal-pipeline-operator

This gives you a package.json file and installs the Babel transpiler and the plugin to handle the pipeline operator.

Next, create a file in your new directory called .babelrc with the following contents:

{
  "plugins": [
  	["@babel/plugin-proposal-pipeline-operator", { "proposal": "minimal" }],
  ]
}

Then, in your package.json, add this line to the scripts object:

"start": "babel pipe.js --out-file output.js && node output.js"

Now make a file called pipe.js and add some code that uses the pipeline operator to it. You'll be able to run this file with npm start.