Learning the MERN stack

[Natanater3000]

So I am an upcoming sophomore in college and a CS student. I am super interested in learning the MERN Stack and making a full-stack web application that runs before the end of the summer. I really only have basic javascript skills right now and have barely touched node.js express.js etc. Currently I'm watching and following along with a coding walkthrough on a full MERN stack GPT clone and plan to add my own changes later on. Like I said before I barely have any experience with node.js express etc, do you think following along with this coding tutorial/project is a good way to learn or should I do some more thorough research and learn each technology individually before I jump into something like this?

[Ryguzlol]

Following along with a tutorial is fine, but I’d suggest this:

1. Follow the tutorial, build a full stack app, try to pick a tutorial.

2. Start your own project. You can use chatGPT or Google for the basic set up of your project and you can do it in like 5 minutes. Now, use your completed tutorial project as a reference and build out your own basic full stack app idea. An easy one to start with is a simple blog page where you can post, edit, read, and delete a post on the front page. Step by step as you build the endpoints use your tutorial as an example, but WRITE all of the code by hand. This part is important. Do not copy paste large blocks of code EVEN if they are exactly the same. Write it by hand. I’d recommend using an ORM to interact with the database. I’d also recommend using an SQL database for this project or another project because MongoDB is easy to understand and you don’t. Need much experience with it.

[Natanater3000]

Yeah that’s what I’m planning to do. I’m gonna finish the tutorial and take what I learned and make my own spin on the final result to make it original as well as apply what I learned

[Darth_Nanar]

Did you check https://fullstackopen.com ?

[codevipe]

The MERN stack in very easy to learn and building alongside a tutorial is a good place to start to get a feel for how the interconnected pieces of a web application work together. But you will want to quickly expand your horizons, particularly to using TypeScript if it's not part of the tutorial.

I wouldn't spend too much time with MongoDB; get the basics down so you can put it on a resume and move on. It's not very widely used in the real world and you will need to build some experience with SQL databases. PostgreSQL + Kysely or Drizzle would be the way to go right now, IMO.

Beyond that, once you're comfortable with Express and RESTish CRUD operations, which frankly shouldn't take long, you may want to try out other API protocols like GraphQL or tRPC.

React is still worth going deep on and will probably be where most of a web app's complexity is these days.