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JavaScript Setup Your Local Development Environment

Posted by mk37
mk37
10,271 Points

i think this may sound like a stupid question but ...

sorry for asking this but i was brought to this workshop because i am following the ajax course in the front end track. and it was talking about local web server. i want to try test out some of my ajax on a web server. i sort of find this recommendation. however i barely know anything about php. i use html files. can i not use html files? should i use something else instead of mamp? or have i got this all wrong?

1 Answer

Brendan Whiting
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Brendan Whiting
Front End Web Development Techdegree Graduate 84,738 Points
Brendan Whiting
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree seal-36
Brendan Whiting
Front End Web Development Techdegree Graduate 84,738 Points

You can use JavaScript to run a server. Here are some courses I recommend here on Treehouse:

Node.js Basics

Express Basics

REST APIs with Express

There's a whole Full Stack JavaScript track, although it's a little bit out of date at the moment.

For the time being, however, it might be better to practice AJAX with existing APIs on the internet. Here are a couple options, but there are many:

Random User

Star Wars

You can make AJAX requests from your front end to one of these web APIs to practice, without having to worry about building your server for now.

One other thing. If it wasn't mentioned already, I highly recommend getting familiar with the Postman tool. You can test out your interactions with a server (a local server or an external server), test your requests, look at the responses in a nice GUI, and isolated to just this piece of the puzzle without worrying about all the front end logic around the request.

mk37
mk37
10,271 Points

thank you