1. Jumping Into JavaScript

AngularJS relies on JavaScript and a light version of jQuery to provide client-side application logic. Therefore, you need at least a basic understanding of JavaScript before you can jump into the AngularJS world. This chapter has two purposes: helping you set up a development environment and helping you understand the basics of the JavaScript language.

The first part of this chapter discusses the necessary basics of setting up a JavaScript development environment. You should at least take a quick look at this section even if you already are familiar with JavaScript and have a development environment set up. This section discusses using Node.js for the environment, which is important in later chapters where Node.js is used to provide server-side scripting.

The rest of this chapter is to familiarize you with some of the language basics of JavaScript, such as variables, functions, and objects. It is intended not as a full language guide but rather as a synopsis of important syntax and idioms. If you are not familiar with JavaScript, working through this primer should enable you to understand the examples throughout the rest of the book. If you already know JavaScript well, you can either skip those sections or review them as a refresher.