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 jour…


This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by buddhila

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  • 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


This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by buddhila


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