Introduction

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>> Speaker 1: 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 one that a lot of people watch I think there's a lot of want and demand on how to build APIs in Node and Express, given the fact that most of us watching this course know JavaScript, and it's just the natural progression of how to take those skills to the server side

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I know for me personally, when I was learning JavaScript and trying to figure out how to get involved on the server, I was very excited that there was something called Node.js, even though at the time it was version 0.0.12 or something like that, even before it wasn't even 1.0 yet

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But that gave me hope that maybe I'd be able to do full-stack development Even back then, people considered it a toy language, but it has evolved to become a de facto server-side technology, and we're going to be exploring a lot of that today

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Some of the prerequisites for this course: obviously, it's helpful if you know JavaScript It's helpful to know Node.js, and here on Frontend Masters, we do have introductory Node.js courses that you can take Although you don't need to know Node.js in-depth, it is helpful

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I won't be covering how Node.js works down to a granular level, but feel free to ask questions, and I'm happy to answer them if they're relevant If you're comfortable with modern JavaScript and using bundlers like Vite or Webpack, you're already using Node.js

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Congratulations, you didn't even know it We will be using TypeScript You don't need to know TypeScript – I always emphasize that TypeScript skills are optional – but we'll be using it nonetheless You can find the GitHub repository under my username Hendriser, in the repo API-design-node-V5

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In the README, there's a link to the Notion notes If you scroll down on the first page, we'll dive into what this course is all about We're going to be building and designing APIs with Node.js using Express This is the 5th iteration of the course, which I continue to teach mostly because I still use these technologies in production

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I'm currently back at Netflix as a senior software engineer, and I use Node.js there all the time A lot of what I'm teaching are things I use in my job and at previous companies I'm not taking a stab at Hello World tutorials – they're great – but I want to share my personal opinions and approaches to API design

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I like to build something substantial by the end of the course, and we'll be creating a backend-only project with no frontend or GUI We'll be learning Node.js, Express.js, TypeScript (though my TypeScript skills are more advanced than basic), PostgreSQL (a popular relational database), RESTful design, authentication and security, testing, and deployment

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We'll use a hosted database, so you don't need to install anything locally I've been writing code for almost 15 years, mostly self-taught I'm a military veteran, currently based in Sacramento My teaching style involves a lot of live coding – I'll use these notes as a reference, but I'll primarily be demonstrating concepts directly in the code editor

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The course repository includes branches for each lesson, so you can easily follow along For technical requirements, you'll need Node.js 23.6 or higher (I'm using 24.3) This version allows native TypeScript support without additional tooling, which I found too good to pass up

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If you don't know your Node.js version, simply type `node --version` in your terminal I've included instructions for using NVM (Node Version Manager) to help you get the latest version if needed Let's get started!