Appendix B. Configuring your environment
This appendix shows you how to install and configure tools used throughout this book. Some of these tools make extensive use of the command line. For a crash course on how to use the command line, visit http://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/appendixa.html.
Chapter 3 introduced a sample application that’s used throughout the book. The prerequisites for running the sample are
- Node.js
- NPM
- Express
The rest of this section explains what these prerequisites are and how to set them up. Note that these instructions may change in the future. If you’re having trouble installing these tools, you can always visit their respective websites to get the latest installation instructions.
The sample runs in Node.js, a development platform for writing server apps. Node.js apps can be written in JavaScript, which is convenient because the client code is also written in JavaScript. Node.js can be downloaded and installed from http://nodejs.org. This page has a giant Install button right on the front that you can click to download the Node.js installer, as shown in figure B.1.
