Review of the book by Vladimir Dronov “Node.js, Express, MongoDB and React. 23 lessons for beginners”, there is a promo code

In the world of web development tools, a special place is occupied by technologies united by the acronym MERN (MongoDB, Express, React, Node.js), which represent a comprehensive solution for developing modern web applications. Book by Vladimir Dronov “Node.js, Express, MongoDB and React. 23 lessons for beginners” is a useful resource for those who want to master this technology stack. And more importantly, this is a powerful 600+ page book, not a pass-through brochure.

The author of the book aims to make learning as practical and accessible as possible. There are 23 lessons presented, each of which is dedicated to a specific topic or technology within the MERN stack. Reading is accompanied by more than 40 practical exercises and tasks for independent work, which allows the user not only to acquire theoretical knowledge, but also to immediately apply it in practice.

Spoiler for readers: An important question: what level of preparation is the book intended for? Pay attention to this – although the cover says “For Beginners,” most likely you will need basic knowledge of JavaScript and other MERN stack technologies. You can, of course, start to figure it out “as you go,” and this option is also possible. Detailed Appendices 1-6 at the end of the book will help with this, with tips on installing and configuring the development environment for each topic covered.

Book's contents

Let's take a look at the table of contents of the book “Node.js, Express, MongoDB and React. 23 lessons for beginners”, page numbers are specially left on the right so that you can estimate the amount of material for each lesson. Each lesson takes about 20 pages, which indicates that the author has carefully studied the topic.

Preface 15
PART I. BEGINNING PROGRAMMING WITH NODE.JS 21
Lesson 1. Introduction to Node.js 23
Lesson 2. Basic principles of web development with Node.js 58
PART II. WEB FRAMEWORK EXPRESS 87
Lesson 3: Introduction to Express 89
Lesson 4. Routing and controllers 104
Lesson 5. Templates. Template engine EJS 121
Lesson 6. Receiving data sent by the user 138
Lesson 7. Intermediaries, static files and error handling 155
Lesson 8. Validation 180
Lesson 9. Cookies, server sessions and pop-up messages 200
Lesson 10. Uploading files 220
Lesson 11. Access control and promiscification 240
PART III. MONGODB DBMS. MODELS MONGOOSE 263
Lesson 12. DBMS MongoDB 265
Lesson 13. Mongoose: object models and writing them 294
Lesson 14. Mongoose: Writing Data 310
Lesson 15. Mongoose: fetching 324 data
Lesson 16. Mongoose: Aggregate Computing and Extending Models 334
PART IV. FRONTENDS AND BACKENDS. WEB FRAMEWORK REACT 353
Lesson 17. Backend programming using Express 355
Lesson 18. Frontend programming. React: 382 components
Lesson 19. React: contexts and routing 420
PART V. COMMISSIONING WEB APPLICATIONS 445
Lesson 20. Improving web application performance 447
Lesson 21. Additional protection for web applications 459
Lesson 22. Journaling. Morgan 468 Library
Lesson 23. Putting web applications into production 477
Conclusion 485
APPLICATIONS 487
Appendix 1. Node.js: getting ready 488
Appendix 2. Visual Studio Code: installation and use 494
Appendix 3. MongoDB: Installation 552
Appendix 4. MongoDB Shell: installation and use 558
Appendix 5. MongoDB Compass: installation and use 561
Appendix 6. Postman: installation and use 583
Appendix 7. Description of the file archive 601

The author starts with the basics of Node.js programming, covering topics such as projects and manifests, installing additional libraries, and importing and exporting modules. Then he moves on to the server-side web framework Express, covering requests and responses, routing, using the EJS templating engine, handling user data and static files, and file validation and persistence issues.

Particular attention is paid to working with the MongoDB DBMS, where readers will learn about recording and retrieving data, filtering, sorting and using Mongoose models. The following chapters cover developing two-tier web applications, including creating backends using Express and frontends using React.

The book also touches on important aspects of improving the performance and security of web applications, explaining in detail how to protect an application from unauthorized access, how to handle errors, and how to put web applications into production.

The advantage of the book is that it electronic archive on the publisher's website, which contains the source code for all the examples described in the book. This makes learning even more visual and allows readers to experiment with the code, modify it, and see the immediate results of their actions.

Summary for readers

Overall, Vladimir Dronov's book “Node.js, Express, MongoDB and React. 23 Lessons for Beginners” is an excellent starting resource for anyone who wants to master development on the MERN stack. Thanks to clear language, step-by-step instructions and a large number of practical tasks, readers will be able to learn the theoretical foundations of each of the technologies and practice using them. It is very useful that the author not only gives language constructs, but also helps install and configure the development environment on the computer.

Use promo code SSPSOFT to buy a book with a 25% discount on publisher's website.

Good luck learning Node.js, Express, MongoDB and React!