Installs

There are a few things to install to get started with this course. Everyone has a different machine and a different development environment, so we'll take our time and make sure we get this right for everyone.

Gmail

One of the simplest things we'll be doing is creating a Gmail account. For personal use, a Hotmail, Yahoo, or AOL account is fine. However, in the professional domain, you'll want a Gmail account for interactions with other engineers, employers, and to establish yourself in the sphere of development. Your account name should reflect your professional approach, as it will be used on your résumé, Github profile (more on this soon) and in connecting your account to developer tools.

Node.js

Node.js is the tool that helps us build fast and scalable network applications in JavaScript. It comes packaged with a very useful tool: Node Package Manager(npm). We'll delve into details regarding Node and npm very soon. For now, just recognize that they come packed together, but they are not the same thing. The directions for installing Node.js can be found at the following url:

https://nodejs.org/en/download/

Choose the appropriate installer (Windows or Mac), and hit next through all the steps.

Note to MAC USERS:

MAC USERS: At the summary, you’ll probably get a message that says this:

Make sure /usr/local/bin is in your $PATH.

To check this go to your Terminal/Command Line and enter this at the prompt: echo $PATH You should get this back:

/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/git/bin

Visual Studio Code

We will use VS Code as our text editor of choice in this course. If you already have experience with a different text editor, that's great! However, we will be using VS Code as a class, to ensure compatibility and instructional consistency. You can go to this link to download VS Code. It is free and should not take too long to download.

Git Installation

To download git onto your computer, go to the link here.

Additional instructions for the appropriate machine (Windows or Mac), are avaliable at this link. The download will start automatically. Installing git simply requires that you follow along with a wizard. Use the default settings when selecting components, but it is recommended that you select the “Nano” editor for your default, as Vim can be difficult to use. If anything goes wrong, you can do it over again, and your previous install will be overwritten.

GitHub Set up

Students will need to set up a GitHub account for this course. GitHub is free and is used, to put it simply, to “save” code to a repository(repo). The instructor will have access to the repos in order to check the code for accuracy. Using GitHub will be explained on the first day of class, and just having the account ready before the class will suffice. A professional username is desirable, as you'll be sharing code with developers around the world.

Instructions for Setting Up a GitHub account:

1. Go to this URL: https://github.com/

2. Pick a professional sounding username and password

3. Click Sign up for GitHub