How I Built My First MERN Project: Challenges, Solutions, and Lessons Learned

• As a software undergrad engineer, I keep looking out for new technologies and making projects to foster my skill. I have recently completed my very first MERN—MongoDB, Express.js, React, and Node.js Stack Project. It has been quite an exciting journey full of challenges and learning. In this blog post, I am going to walk through my experience, the hurdles that came across my way, and the lessons learned.

MERN Stack: What is it?

The MERN stack is a powerful combination of technologies where one can develop a full-stack web application. This includes:

1. MongoDB: A NoSQL database to store data.
2. Express.js: A back-end framework to build APIs and handle server-side logic.
3. React: A front-end library to make the interface of your application interactive.
4. Node.js: A JavaScript runtime which runs the code on the server.

The build project using MERN Stack for a Bridalwear Shop

Features: such as user authentication and performing CRUD operations

Setting Up the Environment

Problem: Dependency management between stacks.
Solution: Used npm and create-react-app for smooth setup connecting

Front-End to Back-End

Problem: Integrating React with the Node.js/Express API.
Solution: Axios for API calls, setup of middleware for handling CORS
issues.

>Database Design Problem

Problem: Structuring MongoDB collections for scalability.
Solution: Learned about normalization of data and used Mongoose
models.

Debugging and Deployment

Problem: How to debug errors in a full-stack environment.
Solution: Chrome DevTools and Postman are pretty helpful.

**Deployment: I Uploaded project in My GitHub Repository

Lessons Learned

Planning Matters: Made a sketch of the app's structure, which really
freed me from a lot of confusion in detail later.
Stay Curious: The documentation for React, Express, and MongoDB saved
my life.
Community Support: Stack Overflow and GitHub issues in general helped
me to figure out blockers.

@gitbuddhi

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