In this chapter, you'll get your local environment set up for the rest of the book. Whether you're on macOS, Linux, or Windows, we'll install Node and look at exactly how we can run Node applications.
We'll talk about what Node is, why you would ever want to use it, and why you would want to use Node as opposed to something like Rails, C++, Java, or any other language that can accomplish similar tasks. By the end of this chapter, you will be running your very first Node application. It's going to be simple, but it is going to get us to the path to creating real-world production Node apps, which is the goal of this book.
More specifically, we'll cover the following topics:
- Node.js installation
- What Node is
- Why use Node
- Atom
- Hello World
