1. Prior experience with other server-side technologies, such as Python, PHP, ASP.NET, and Ruby will be beneficial but is not mandatory.
2. This book will require a computer system. The minimum hardware requirements  are 1.8 GHz or higher Pentium 4 (or equivalent) processor, 4 GB RAM, 10 GB hard disk, and a stable internet connection.
3. The software required are Visual Studio Code (https://code.visualstudio.com/), Node.js (8.9.1) (https://nodejs.org/en/), MySQL Workbench 6.3 (https://www.mysql.com/products/workbench/),  and MySQL (https://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/).

You can download the example code files for this book from your account at www.packtpub.com. If you purchased this book elsewhere, you can visit www.packtpub.com/support and register to have the files emailed directly to you.

You can download the code files by following these steps:

1. Log in or register at www.packtpub.com.
2. Select the SUPPORT tab.
3. Click on Code Downloads & Errata.
4. Enter the name of the book in the Search box and follow the onscreen instructions.

Once the file is downloaded, please make sure that you unzip or extract the folder using the latest version of:

• WinRAR/7-Zip for Windows
• Zipeg/iZip/UnRarX for Mac
• 7-Zip/PeaZip for Linux

The code bundle for the book is also hosted on GitHub at https://github.com/TrainingByPackt/BeginningAPIDevelopmentwithNode.js. In case there's an update to the code, it will be updated on the existing GitHub repository.

We also have other code bundles from our rich catalog of books and videos available at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/. Check them out!

There are a number of text conventions used throughout this book.

CodeInText: Indicates code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles. Here is an example: "After this setup is done, we then start the server using the server.start method."

A block of code is set as follows:

handler: (request, reply) => 
{
  return reply({ message: 'hello, world' });
}

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

node server.js

Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you see onscreen. For example, words in menus or dialog boxes appear in the text like this. Here is an example: "Change the request type to POST."

Activity: These are scenario-based activities that will let you practically apply what you've learned over the course of a complete section. They are typically in the context of a real-world problem or situation.