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Module 0

Development environment

The tools you will need to effectively develop the API

Node

Node.js is a JavaScript runtime built on Chrome's V8 JavaScript engine. This means we write our code in JavaScript/TypeScript.

Node.js should never be installed independently on your machine.
Instead you should install it through nvm (node version manager).

NVM

Install homebrew

Install nvm (or on windows).

For nvm you may need to edit your shell configuration file (.bashrc, .zshrc, etc.) to load nvm.

To know your current shell run:

echo $SHELL

Usually, it will be zsh;

To edit your shell configuration file run:

nano ~/.zshrc

Paste the following lines:

export NVM_DIR="$HOME/.nvm"
[ -d "$NVM_DIR" ] || mkdir -p "$NVM_DIR"
[ -s "/opt/homebrew/opt/nvm/nvm.sh" ] && \. "/opt/homebrew/opt/nvm/nvm.sh"
[ -s "/opt/homebrew/opt/nvm/etc/bash_completion.d/nvm" ] && \. "/opt/homebrew/opt/nvm/etc/bash_completion.d/nvm"

Save and exit using ctrl+x and y.

If Node.js is already installed it should be removed before installing nvm.

When the installation is completed you can simply run the following to install latest LTS node (currently 18.14.0):

nvm install --lts

Package manager

Instead of the default NPM package manager we will be using pnpm.

corepack enable
corepack prepare pnpm@latest --activate

VSCode

Visual Studio Code is our preferred editor for Node.js because it's:

  • Performant
  • Customizable
  • Strong JS/TS support

Install vscode

Extensions

The following extensions will make your life a lot easier:

If the name of the extension is not clear, you can check it out in the marketplace where they are all well documented.

Keyboard shortcuts

Making use of keyboards shortcuts can drastically increase your productivity.

Checkout these shortcuts. These are the ones most developers use a lot on a daily basis.

Auto imports

VSCode will help you to import functions and modules automatically. There are two ways it can do this:

  1. When you type a function or module name, VSCode will suggest you to import it. Like described in their docs
  2. The other option is to use [cmd]+[.] when your cursor is on a name that's not yet imported. But often this doesn't work without a js/tsconfig file.

Clipboard manager

You will be copying and pasting a lot of code snippets. A clipboard manager will help you to keep track of all the snippets you copy. The easiest way to have a clipboard manager is to install Raycast

After the installation, you need to open the app and its settings (cmd + ,). Search for the Clipboard History extension and add a hotkey for it (cmd + shift + v or cmd + option + v).

Raycast Clipboard History

Copy some text and press the hotkey. You should see the text you copied in the clipboard history.

Clipboard History

Shell

Most of the modern computers use zsh as their default shell. To enhance your experience with the terminal you can install oh-my-zsh and Amazon Q

Git

Use git as your version control system.
Always commit when completing a section. Optionally you can also push to github.

If you are unfamiliar with git, you can check out a simple git tutorial