Preparation and Tools
For the course, I advise you to take notes as you go of everything you learn and do. The goal is to free your brain as much as possible from all the information you want to remember.
Essential Tools
Here's what we'll need:
- An IDE (Integrated Development Environment):
- VS Code, Cursor, Windsurf, WebStorm... the choice matters little to me. None is better than the others, they are just habits and tastes!
- A Note-Taking Tool:
- Obsidian, LogSeq, Roam Research, Any Type, Notion, Evernote, OneNote, Everkeep...
- Git installed on your PC: Git
- Node.js installed on your PC: Node.js — Run JavaScript Everywhere
- Take the LTS (Long Term Support) or Latest version, as you like!
- A Github or Gitlab account (Github is generally better regarded in the market, but you are free to choose the one you want!).
Student Advantage: If you are a student, you can have access to the GitHub Student Developer Pack, which offers many free tools: GitHub Student Developer Pack - GitHub Education.
Attention: Use of AI
Although I don't mind the use of AI, I would ask you, on the small exercises, to avoid using it too much. The main objective is to understand the code you are writing.
The idea is that these basics will serve you throughout your career and will be extremely useful to you. The rest of the course cannot be done without these foundations; it will very quickly become much more complicated. So, don't be lazy at the beginning! It will bring you a lot, even if you don't like the front! We'll do everything!
Tips for AI
That said, for those who will use AI later, use it well:
- Make complete system prompts according to your needs.
- Read the documentation of Anthropic for example, to understand the subtleties.
- Try several AIs. Some AIs are better FOR YOU (and not for others), depending on your knowledge, the way you explain yourself, the way you prompt and the way you think!
https://docs.claude.com/en/docs/build-with-claude/prompt-engineering/claude-4-best-practices