Installing the Engine

Bolting to the Chassis

Before we can start stripping weight, we need to install the core component. Think of this as dropping the new high-performance engine block into your existing Express chassis. It needs to be bolted down (installed) and wired up (configured) before we can turn the key.

Once the engine is mounted, we tell the onboard computer (Express) to switch its fuel mapping from “Standard HTML” to “Pug Injection.”

Installation

First, install the package as a dependency.

npm install pug

Configuration

We need to configure Express to use Pug as the default view engine. This tells Express that when we render a file, it should look for .pug extensions and use the Pug engine to parse them.

const express = require("express");
const app = express();
const path = require("path");

// 1. Set the views directory
app.set("views", path.join(__dirname, "views"));

// 2. Set the view engine to 'pug'
app.set("view engine", "pug");

[!NOTE] T.A. Watts says: Notice we didn’t require('pug')? Express handles that internally when you set the view engine. Don’t clutter your file with unnecessary requires.

⏭ Aerodynamic Syntax

Engine is mounted. Now, let’s learn how to shape the body panels for maximum speed.

Next Lap: Classes, IDs, and the art of indentation.