Pro MERN Stack: Full Stack Web App Development with Mongo, Express, React, and Node

Assemble the complete stack required to build a modern web app using React: MongoDB (a NoSQL database) and Express (a framework for web application servers), which runs on Node (JavaScript on the server side), complement React very nicely. This book will also cover many other tools that go into building a complete web application: React Router, React-Bootstrap, Redux, Babel, and webpack.

Though the primary focus of Pro MERN Stack is to equip you with all that is required to build a full-fledged web application, a large portion of the book will be devoted to React.

The popular MEAN (MongoDB, Express, AngularJS, Node) stack introduced Single Page Apps (SPAs) and front-end Model-View-Controller (MVC) as new and efficient paradigms. But it has its shortcomings such as lack of support for SEO friendly server-side rendering and being too prescriptive by being a framework.

Facebook’s React is a technology that competes indirectly with AngularJS. It is not a full-fledged MVC framework. It is a JavaScript library for building user interfaces (in some sense the View part). Yet, it is possible to build a web app by replacing AngularJS with React – hence the term MERN stack.

What You Will Learn

• Discover the details of React, the React Way, and how to get the maximum out of this library
• See the basics of MongoDB, Express, and Node, enough to build a web app
• Work with other tools complementary to React, including React-Bootstrap and React Router
• Use the tools required to build JavaScript based SPAs
• Tie all the components together to build a complete web app.

Who This Book Is For

Developers and architects who have prior experience in any web app stack other than the MERN stack will find the book useful to learn about this modern stack. Prior knowledge of JavaScript, HTML, and CSS is required.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Hello World
Chapter 3: React Components
Chapter 4: React State
Chapter 5: Express REST APIs
Chapter 6: Using MongoDB
Chapter 7: Modularization and Webpack
Chapter 8: Routing with React Router
Chapter 9: Forms
Chapter 10: React-Bootstrap
Chapter 11: Server Rendering
Chapter 12: Advanced Features
Chapter 13: Looking Ahead