I find node's asynchronous nature awkward for user input. To be fair it was not designed for this kind of thing. For writing simple JavaScript command line utilities on windows I prefer to use Microsoft's JScript, which is included with the Windows Script Host (WSH).
WScript.StdOut.Write("Enter your name: ")
var str = WScript.StdIn.Readline()
WScript.StdOut.Write("Hello " + str)
The downside is that JScript is old, about JavaScript 1.5 or ECMAScript 3/4.
Other alternatives are Rhino (getting old as well) and Nashorn; both of which are implemented in Java. If blinding speed is required then the SpiderMonkey JavaScript engine is impressive.
All of these make decent general purpose scripting engines, but I wouldn't use any of them as an alternative to Node on a server.
Other synchronous alternatives to readline are readline-sync and prompt-sync
https://www.codecademy.com/articles/getting-user-input-in-node-js
https://www.npmjs.com/package/readline-sync
I've just tested prompt-sync with Microsoft Visual Studio and Node.js and it works fine for me. Did you remember to use npm to install the prompt-sync package?
Yes it works at my windows command prompt and I often use prompt-sync while coding. But it doesn't work at sololearn codeplayground and that's why I can't completing the projects of javascript courses which is mandatory to acquire certificate.
It won't work in the code playground because you are not at the console in the of the code playground's server. You are on a remote connection. All of the exercises in the course can be completed using nothing more than the lessons given.
