Introduction

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>> Scott Moss: Welcome to API Design V5 of Node.js and Express. I'm your instructor Scott Moss. I'm a very long time OG instructor here at Frontend Masters. This course is a course that a lot of people watch.

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This course is a course that a lot of people watch. I think there's a lot of want demand on how to build APIs on Node.js and Express, given the fact that a lot of us, I would say probably all of us, hopefully watching this course, know JavaScript, it's just like the natural progression of like how do I take those skills over to the server side. I know for me personally when I was learning JavaScript then, you know, trying to figure out how to get involved on the server, I was very excited at the time that there was something called Node.js, even though at the time it was like version 0.0 point. 12 or something like that even before that it wasn't even 1.0 yet but that right there gave me like hope that like maybe I'll be able to do like full stack stuff even back then people kind of considered it like a a toy language but it is evolved it is a de facto service side technology we're gonna be exploring a lot of that today.

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12 or something like that even before that it wasn't even 1.0 yet but that right there gave me like hope that like maybe I'll be able to do like full stack stuff even back then people kind of considered it like a a toy language but it is evolved it is a de facto service side technology we're gonna be exploring a lot of that today. So some of the prerequisites for this course, obviously it's helpful if you know JavaScript. It's helpful to know Node.js, here on Frontend Masters we do have intro to Node.js courses that you can take, although you don't need to know Node.js, it is helpful, but I won't be like covering how Node.js works down to a granular level all that stuff, but feel free to ask questions I'm happy to answer them because they are relevant. But, it is helpful to know a little bit about Node.js, but if you're, if you're comfortable with modern JavaScript using like, bundlers like Vite or Webpack or anything like that, you'll already using OJS.

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But, it is helpful to know a little bit about Node.js, but if you're, if you're comfortable with modern JavaScript using like, bundlers like Vite or Webpack or anything like that, you'll already using OJS. Congratulations, you didn't even know it, so you're not really gonna miss anything here, mainly just no JavaScript. We will be using TypeScript. You don't need to know TypeScript.

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You don't need to know TypeScript. Notice I didn't mention that. TypeScript Types are always optional, but we'll be using TypeScript, yeah, we're gonna cover a lot of stuff. You go to my GitHub, which is.

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You go to my GitHub, which is. Hendrixer, that's my username then the course is just slash API design-node-V5. That's gonna be the repo we're gonna be working out of. In the read me, there's just one little link that says follow along with notes.

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In the read me, there's just one little link that says follow along with notes. If you click that, it'll take you to the notion notes. Let's go look at those notes, Lots of things going on here, but if you scroll down on this first page, we can dive right into what this course is gonna be all about. So like I said, we're gonna be building APIs design.

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So like I said, we're gonna be building APIs design. We're gonna be designing APIs with Node.js using the Express. This is the 5th iteration. I continue to teach this course mostly because I still use this stuff in production, as of today I'm, I am now back at Netflix for the 2nd time, As a senior software engineer I use Node.js there all the time for all types of things so a lot of the stuff that I'm teaching today are literally things that I use at my job, at previous companies that I've started, previous companies that I've worked at, so it's more than just, you know, it's not, I'm not taking a stab at like the Hello world tutorials out there that teach you know, how to build APIs.

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I continue to teach this course mostly because I still use this stuff in production, as of today I'm, I am now back at Netflix for the 2nd time, As a senior software engineer I use Node.js there all the time for all types of things so a lot of the stuff that I'm teaching today are literally things that I use at my job, at previous companies that I've started, previous companies that I've worked at, so it's more than just, you know, it's not, I'm not taking a stab at like the Hello world tutorials out there that teach you know, how to build APIs. I think they're really good. But I do think a lot of those tutorials missed the opinions of the author themselves, so I just wanted to make sure I include those opinions so you might if you're taking some courses on API design with No things like that, you might see some things in this course that you might have not have come across those are my opinions I'll explain why I do those things so I will be sharing a lot of that stuff. I also like to have something built out by the end of the course so we won't just be covering topics we'll actually be making something we'll talk about what we're what we'll be what we'll be making There won't be any front-end related to this at all, so there won't be any UI any GUI or anything like that.

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I also like to have something built out by the end of the course so we won't just be covering topics we'll actually be making something we'll talk about what we're what we'll be what we'll be making There won't be any front-end related to this at all, so there won't be any UI any GUI or anything like that. It'll all be back in, yeah, we'll have tools to help us, test all of that stuff, so. What you're gonna be learning, like I said, no Express we're gonna do some TypeScript stuff, you know, if you have TypeScript questions, ask me, but I promise you I'm not that I would say my TypeScript skills are probably. It's like I can't do basic things, but I can do the advanced stuff.

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It's like I can't do basic things, but I can do the advanced stuff. So if you have a basic question about TyScript like setting it up TS config like basic things, I don't really have any good opinions there but if you're trying to figure out how to do like some advanced TypeScript situation, I probably have done that so you can ask me questions about that. We'll be using Postgres. If you don't know what Postgres is, well, it's a Database, it's a relational Database, it's one of the most popular databases in the world.

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If you don't know what Postgres is, well, it's a Database, it's a relational Database, it's one of the most popular databases in the world. If you never used it before. Doesn't matter. It's not a requirement.

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It's not a requirement. You don't need to install anything on your computer to use it as well. We'll be using a hosted version if you do have it on your computer used it before, feel free to use that. We'll be talking about restful design what does that actually mean?

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We'll be talking about restful design what does that actually mean? We'll be covering authentication security, testing, so if you have been avoiding testing. You will be writing tons of tests in this course we'll also be talking about deployment getting our API deployed onto a real service that you can actually use. Like I said, I'm at Netflix right now, been here for about going on 6 months, after.

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Like I said, I'm at Netflix right now, been here for about going on 6 months, after. Running a startup, an AI startup having fun with that, learned a lot, learned what not to do, learn. A bunch of stuff, yeah, I've been writing code for almost 15 years now. Mostly self-taught.

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Mostly self-taught. I don't have a traditional background, never really, never went to college. I was, I was in the military. That's where I spent my four years out of high school.

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That's where I spent my four years out of high school. Right now I'm based in Sacramento with my family, a lot of friends, out there. I spent a lot of time in the bay still driving down there hanging out with folks because I used to live in Oakland as well. The way that I like to teach the course is I like to do as much life coding as possible so.

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The way that I like to teach the course is I like to do as much life coding as possible so. These lessons will be here I'll use them as a reference for me to stay on track, but you probably won't see me just sitting here reading them verbatim they're mostly for you to have for me to stay on track, but when I'm teaching the lesson, I'm gonna try my best to open up the editor show you what I'm talking about with the code that I'm writing, so. I call that like scratch code. You can follow along if you want on that scratch code, but usually that scratch code is just for me to explain something then we'll actually get into the implement implementation code which is like this is the code that you need to follow along because this is what's progressing through the course to get this API done I'll let you know when we're doing that, when you should follow it when you shouldn't if you don't decide you wanna follow or maybe the pace is different, not moving too fast or whatever.

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You can follow along if you want on that scratch code, but usually that scratch code is just for me to explain something then we'll actually get into the implement implementation code which is like this is the code that you need to follow along because this is what's progressing through the course to get this API done I'll let you know when we're doing that, when you should follow it when you shouldn't if you don't decide you wanna follow or maybe the pace is different, not moving too fast or whatever. All the code that you'll ever need is not only gonna be in the notes for you to copy paste but I also created a branch for every single lesson that we're gonna do that already has the code, done so you can just check out to the branch it'll be there it's already, it's already up on GitHub. Cool. Alright, let's get into it.

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Alright, let's get into it. Technical requirements, what do you need? You're gonna need Node.js 23.6 or higher. I'm using 24.3.

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I'm using 24.3. Why such a high version? Well, one, I don't wanna have to teach this course again in 3 months, two, there's actually a really cool feature in the version of 23.6 where you can now use TypeScript natively know without any type of build system without any type of tooling, I thought that was just too good to pass up. So, definitely use 23 higher if you don't.

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So, definitely use 23 higher if you don't. Know how to check what version you have. You can just go on your terminal type Node.js version, see what version you have. If you don't have that version, yeah, I have instructions right here actually on how to use NVM, which is short for Node.js version manager which you can download follow those instructions to get the latest version of Node.js.

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If you don't have that version, yeah, I have instructions right here actually on how to use NVM, which is short for Node.js version manager which you can download follow those instructions to get the latest version of Node.js. But yeah, please have 23.6 or later.