Preparing the workspace

The first thing we have to do is to set up our workstation; it won't be difficult, because we only need a small set of essential tools. These include Visual Studio 2017, the web platform installer, the Node.JS runtime, a web server such as IIS or IIS Express, and a decent source code control system such as Git, Mercurial, or Team Foundation. We will take the latter for granted, as we most likely already have it up and running.

In the unlikely case we don't, we should really make amends before moving on! Stop reading, go to www.github.com or www.bitbucket.com, create a free account, and spend some time to learn how to effectively use these tools; we won't regret it, that's for sure.