the Working with Data and APIs course on the coding train.

So what I want to do in this video is pretty simple.

I just want to give you a quick list of all the things you

either need to know before you start the course

and what kind of tools and software and things

you need to have running on a computer

in order to be able follow along in the tutorials.

So probably the most important thing

is just JavaScript, the programming language itself.

So if you're a total new programmer, if you never

programmed before, maybe you want

to check out my intro series about learning

to code with JavaScript using the P5 JS library.

Also it would be really helpful if you understood

the basics of HTML, how to write an HTML web

page, what the Dom is, what Dom elements are on the page.

So if that's new to you, once again,

I offer you some resources in this video's description.

Knowing a little bit about CSS or cascading style sheets

could also be useful, but definitely not required.

And that really covers all of the things

that you need to know before you get started.

So now let me move on to what do you

need to have operationally on your computer

to follow the tutorials.

So first, thing you need is a code editor.

In the videos, I'm using Visual Studio Code.

It's a pretty popular code editor that a lot of people

use now, but there's no reason you need to use it.

You could use a number of any other text editor

that you could find on your computer,

Atom is one, Brackets, Sublime, there's somebody text editors.

Everybody has their favorite.

You also don't need to use a text editor locally

on your computer.

You could use, at least for module 1,

you could use an online code editor, Code Pen, JS Fiddle,

the P5 web editor, any of these would work.

But if you want to follow on exactly what I'm doing,

Visual Studio Code is the editor that I'm using.

Because I'm using a local text editor,

in order for the examples I'm writing to work,

I also need to run a web server, and a lot

of the text editors like Visual Studio Code, for example,

have extensions that will run a web server for you.

You can run a web server by typing in some commands

into your terminal access to your computer.

And so actually if this is new to you,

I might refer you to my workflow series

where I cover how to download a text editor,

how to get shell access, terminal

access to your computer, how to launch a web server, all

of that sort of stuff.

But things really change when I get

into modules 2 and 3 of this series,

because there I start using something called Node dot JS,

so you absolutely will want to have

shell access to your computer.

You'll notice I'm using an application called iTerm, which

is a Mac terminal application.

You can use just the default Mac terminal application.

If you're on Windows, the command prompt.

Power Shell, Get Bash, if you're on Linux.

I assume you know what you're doing in terms of shell access.

So that's what you can use, because you're

going to want to download and install

Node and run node commands from terminal itself.

You don't actually need to do this right now,

because when I get in to module 2,

I'll explain to you what Node is and how to install it,

but if you want to be up and running

and ready for that go ahead and install that now.

At the very end of this course, I

look at deploying your project to a web server in the cloud,

and there I make use of something

called Git, which is version control software, and GitHub,

which is a website where you can take your Git repos

and put them on line.

That may be completely unfamiliar to you.

I will give you a sort of basic primer on that

when I get to that, but that's certainly

will be something that you might want to check out.

I have a video series about GitHub

as well, before you get started with this course,

but it won't come in all the way until module 3.

So hopefully, I've covered everything

that you need to know before you get

started with this first video.

I am sure that I have forgotten something,

so I'd encourage you to check out the video's description,

because as people are watching the course,

they're asking questions, and I realize I'm forgetting things.

I will add them to the video's description.

So at least there there will be a list with links of everything

that you might need to know or have before you get started

with the first video.

So that's it.

This is it.

I'll see you in the next video.

Oh, I do have my train whistle.

Goodbye.