Node.js — Prerequisites

What You Need Before Starting

1. Solid JavaScript (required)

This is a hard prerequisite, not a formality. Node.js is JavaScript — the syntax, the language semantics, and the event-loop concept are all identical to what you already learned in this platform's JavaScript course. This course does not re-teach:

•Functions, closures, and scope

•Arrays and objects, including destructuring and spread

•Promises and async/await

•The event-loop concept (call stack, hand off slow work, come back once free)

If any of those feel shaky, this platform's JavaScript technology is the right place to build them first — Node's Fundamentals tab starts directly with require/module.exports and the fs module, assuming the language itself is already comfortable.

2. Basic command-line comfort (recommended, not required)

Running node script.js, npm install, and navigating directories (cd, ls/dir) is the normal day-to-day workflow for Node development. The Installation tab walks through the exact commands needed — genuine terminal fear isn't a blocker, but expect to spend a little time getting comfortable with it early rather than avoiding it throughout the course.

3. What you do not need yet

•Prior backend or server experience in any language — this course assumes zero prior server-side experience. Whatever a "server," a "port," or an "HTTP request" concretely means in practice is explained from scratch as it comes up.

•A specific framework (Express, etc.) — this technology covers Node itself, the runtime underneath any framework. Express is a separate technology on this platform, and understanding raw Node first is what makes Express's abstractions (routing, middleware) make sense as conveniences rather than magic.

•Database experience — not touched in this technology at all; covered separately when backend work reaches a database-driven project.

Quick self-check

Can you explain, without looking it up, what a closure is and write a short example of async/await handling a fetch call with error handling? If yes, you're ready to start at Fundamentals. If either one feels unclear, spend more time in this platform's JavaScript course first — Node's material assumes both are already solid, and re-explaining them here would only slow down what's actually new: running JavaScript on a server.

Node.js — Prerequisites

Node.js — Prerequisites

What You Need Before Starting

1. Solid JavaScript (required)

2. Basic command-line comfort (recommended, not required)

3. What you do *not* need yet

Quick self-check

3. What you do not need yet