This is an introductory workshop to Node.js and Express. You'll be building your own platform to write, publish and save blog posts (a basic content management system, or CMS).
Express is one of the most widely-used frameworks for Node.js. It simplifies base features of Node.js, making it easier and faster to build your application's backend. Learning Express gives you a great foundation for becoming a Node.js developer ✨
This workshop is divided into a number of steps. At the end of each segment, you should find a link to continue onto the next step. We suggest you follow along with the tutorial online, and write your code in a separate repository.
You will see code snippets throughout the walkthrough. Try to resist the urge to copy and paste - you will learn much more if you get into the habit of typing things out.
Throughout each step, we have bolded any jargon that you may or may not be familiar with. These terms are explained in the Keywords section at the bottom of each page. You'll also find a link to our cheatsheets under Useful Links.
We encourage you to use cloud9.io to complete this workshop as it's very easy to set up a Nodejs workspace and start coding straightaway.
🙋 If you don't have a cloud9.io account, please let any of the mentors know and we'll send you an invitation to join our group space.
If you're comfortable setting up your development enviroment locally, please download Node from the Node.js website here.
Fork this repository to your own GitHub account. Instructions for doing this can be found here.
If you're using cloud9.io create a new workspace. Instructions for doing this can be found here.
🙋 Make sure you:
- Enter the URL to your github forked repo
$ https://github.com/YOUR-USERNAME/express-workshop - Select Node.js as your workspace template
If you're working in your local environment, clone your forked version of the repository to your desktop in the terminal. Instructions for doing this can be found here, or run the command below.
$ git clone https://github.com/YOUR-USERNAME/express-workshop
This creates an express-workshop directory with the repository content inside. Change into the express-workshop directory, since that's where we'll be working from now on.
$ cd express-workshop