Before I introduce you to working with Node.js as a web-development platform, you need to prepare your environment (the computer
on which you’ll be developing). In this unit, you’ll install all the tools you need to get started with Node.js. These tools
help you write the code to get your applications working and eventually running on the internet. By the end of this unit,
you’ll have installed everything you need to get started coding and running a Node.js application. Toward this goal, unit 0 covers the following topics:
Lesson 0 discusses what you’re going to learn in this book and why it’s important. I introduce you to Node.js, giving you a little
background and discussing why it’s a good platform for web development. This lesson also covers what you should expect to
get out of this book. I talk about some of the prerequisites and things to keep in mind as you work toward a robust web application.
Lesson 1 walks you through the installation process for each tool and library of code you’ll be using to start the next unit. Although
installing Node.js is the focus of this lesson, setting up your computer as a development environment takes a few more steps.
Lesson 2 introduces your first Node.js application and a few tests to ensure that you have a compatible version of Node.js running
on your computer.