Install Code Editor and setup Project Management System

For this tutorial series, we will use a code editor called Visual Studio Code, also commonly referred to as VS Code which is one of the best code editors for development work out there in the market and is created by Microsoft. It's free to use and cross-platform which made it highly popular among the developers and has now become default code editor in many big companies. Also, it's plugin eco-system is very huge and contains thousands of plugins that aids in the development work greatly and is also one of the primary reason for such popularity in the developer community

To download VS Code, go to the following link and download the installer based on your operating system

https://code.visualstudio.com/Download

Install Visual Studio Code

Once your Visual Studio Code is up and running, we will install some plugins which will help us a lot while doing development work.

Visual Studio Code

Now, let's install some extensions

Visual Studio Code Extensions

Search for following extensions among which some are globally installed. If it is already not installed, you can install following plugins:

  • Prettier

    Prettier is an opinionated code formatter.

  • Path Intellisense

    Visual Studio Code plugin that autocompletes filenames.

  • GitLens

    GitLens supercharges Git inside VS Code and unlocks untapped knowledge within each repository.

  • Live Server

    Launch a development local Server with live reload feature for static & dynamic pages

  • Better Comments

    The Better Comments extension will help you create more human-friendly comments in your code.

  • REST Client

    REST Client allows you to send HTTP request and view the response in Visual Studio Code directly.

We will discuss and install other plugins as they are needed in later chapters.

Now, let's continue with the project management system (PMS) which we will be using to track all the features in task level so that it's easier to track what needs to be done and also the progress level of each tasks. For PMS, let's use Trello which is a simple and very easy to use tool to manage the project features. We can add other collaborators and assign them tasks as well  and it's free to use and serves our purpose very well.

First create an account with Trello by clicking the link below:

https://trello.com/

Once account is created, create a workspace and inside that workspace, create a board using templates given in the dashboard. For this series, I will be using Kanban template for ease of use.

Create Trello Account Create Trello WorkspaceCreate Trello Board

You can navigate to the following link and create a clone of the trello board that i have created. Here, I have create a basic task list that we can do to implement the backend side of the application. You can even break down those tasks in the backlog to even smaller sub tasks so that you can track progress at the minute level.

https://trello.com/b/wwXqJC7v/travel-booking-application

In the next chapter, We will create a simple Node.js server.

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