I created a couple of simple scripts in Node.js: Desk.com / Salesforce API call and store data in Azure SQL for further analysis with Power BI and credit bureau reports.
I default to VS Code IDE that I find clean and efficient. Code is simpler to use compared to full VS as it reduces clutter by making you add what you need rather than switching off / ignoring features that you don’t need.
NPM packages need to be used with caution as majority provide dead ends. My learning is to start solving the problem using baseline language features and only add packages when absolutely necessary.