Node with React
Fullstack Web Development

Haha, wow, that same video was actually what got me into Javascript, which eventually led me to where I am now, creating full stack apps with React and NextJS. It's been about 2 years.

So here's the path I took. I wanted to learn JS after watching that video so I went to Udemy and bought a $10 course called modern Javascript from the beginning. It was pretty great but a little over my head. As soon as the first project rolled around, creating a book list application, I knew that I would need to go back and learn HTML/CSS first because I was completely lost on that side. So I put JS on hold for a few months and then did HTML/CSS from the beginning.

It took me 2 months to finish HTML/CSS course at about 1 hour a day, and after that I went back to the JS course and finished it in about 3-4 months.

After that, I felt I had a nice introduction to web dev, but was still totally a baby when It came to making things, so I did a few easy projects on my own to solidify my knowledge, and eventually stumbled across this course which was useful for learning more vanilla JS in practical applications. I did select projects from there and it helped but didn't do all 20 projects.

So in the process of doing that 20 project course, I actually went pretty deep on one of the projects, I believe it was the one using Meal DB. I created search and filter functionality and even different pages and everything, but after a while I started to realize how slow it was making projects with Vanilla JS. Over time I realized that people don't actually make full scale web apps using vanilla JS at least not professionally (though it can be done) - and was introduced to the React framework after this realization. I watched a lot of youtube about it and slowly started to see what React was about and later on (maybe 6-8 months after finishing that first JS course) I took this course for React and was thoroughly impressed. I learned a ton in this course, and I think it's a must for new React devs. This course changed my life.

In about 2 months, I had finished that React course, and then I was at a crossroads. Because up until this point I wasn't sure how far I wanted to go with web dev. It started as me watching a single JS video so that I could add a skill to my resume but the more I went with it the more I loved creating web applications. React was a total game changer, and suddenly I started to see how me, a solo developer, could create entire websites by myself. Suddenly I understood how people created such amazing portfolios and started to see that it was possible for me. So around this time I decided that I wanted to actually do several projects with React, develop a portfolio and Resume, and try to switch careers into it. I knew it would take a while, so I developed a plan while I worked from home during Covid and began spending like 3-4 hours a day working and learning this topic. This was around November of 2020, that I made this decision. It worked out for me well because I still got paid full time but also was learning what I wanted to learn at my own pace, which finally closed the door to the possibility of doing a bootcamp (which up to that point, I had been considering. Glad I didn't do it!)

Following that React course linked above, I did a solo project where I created a weatther application, and that took a few weeks. As Christmas/New Years of that year rolled around, I started to see that I had a new blind spot - backend and full stack. I had been messing around with React for months now but I had never used my own API, never created my own Database, etc, never created a server. And I started to see how easy it was to do that stuff. So I made a resolution to learn how to make a full stack React app, and a few weeks later I started this full stack react course (which I honestly wouldn't recommend, it was only ok) where I learned all about NodeJS and how to create a full stack application with Authentication and everything. That was eye opening and I learned so much, that after finishing it (about 3 months) I decided that I wanted to build one myself. Now we're in March 2021.

So started my longest solo project to date, which took about 4 months to fully build and deploy. This one was a doozie, I learned waaay more than I thought I would. That was only about 2 months ago that I finished that project (Early June).

Since then, Ive continued to mess around with Node and done some small projects, but I mostly have been learning NextJS, which I realized was valuable for how simple and easy it helped me to create full stack applications, and for how easy deployment was. For that large solo project, actually deploying was the hardest part.

So I took this course with Next JS which was so much fun. That took about 1 month and only 3 weeks ago, I started creating my Web Development portfolio using NextJS. And that's where I'm at now.

Anyway, it's long winded but I wanted to let you know my story and have a taste of the kind of time and patience it takes to develop skills with this. My advice is to figure out what you want out of Javascipt - do you want to just tinker with or do you want to use it to build full scale web applications? Because over time, my goals definitely shifted the more I learned about it, and now I'm actually building full scale apps, which is fun. I went into this thinking that JS by itself would be useful for my job, but it turns out that it really isn't. And to be honest, it's only so useful for building websites without a framework like React or Angular. The real power of Javascript, is using it with a framework to quickly build powerful reactive applications so I recommend you consider that before spending 6 months learning it.

Also, these course I've linked are just the ones I've used, not necessarily the best ones out there. The path I took was long, partly because I didn't know what to learn first, didn't know where I Wanted to take it. I think if I were to do it over, I would have spent way less time tinkering with vanilla JS and would have gotten into using a framework much sooner, because I could have probably cut out 8 months or so of learning time if I had done that.

So regardless of what you end up doing with Javascript, if you want to build websites, you'll need to learn HTML and CSS pretty well, so I'd start there and get the basics. Then work on building small simple web apps using JS where you're inserting and removing things from the DOM. After you've done 1 or 2 of those, start learning a framework like React, this will take a while and will feel weird at first but just stick with it. After you've gotten that exposure you should have a good idea if you want to continue learning this or not. Try a solo project something small and basic, and see if it makes sense. If it's fun just keep going!

I learned quite a lot from this udemy course several years ago. I know the author continues to update the content. Pm me if you would like to discuss more on the development of your app.

Without knowing your tech skills it’s hard to say but if you’re a developer here is a course that teaches you to make a website integrated with Stripe where you the user can buy “credits” with cash, and then spend those credits to send out surveys to users. Sounds like a similar use case to yours.

https://www.udemy.com/course/node-with-react-fullstack-web-development/

https://www.udemy.com/course/node-with-react-fullstack-web-development/

https://www.udemy.com/course/node-with-react-fullstack-web-development/

It's old but cheap and walks you through everything. I think they keep it up to date for parts that have deprecated etc. You can probably check out the repo for free first as well

Its Stephen Grider, not Grinder :P

I can't recommend Stephen's courses enough. I have 6 of his courses and recommend them religiously to people at work. I work on an AI & Automation team and when people want to learn anything fullstack/Node he's the #1 goto. We even made jokes about getting t-shirts that say "In Grider we Trust".

Really what I like about Grider as opposed to many other "tutorials" on Udemy/Youtube is that he's not one to just say "type what I type" or "that's just the way it works". He actually takes effort to have the learner understand the concepts behind the material. Want to learn Typescript? His first two sections of over an hour are "Typescript Overview" and "What is a type system".

I once bought one of his courses for just a few sections I wanted to learn about. Skipping around is also really easy because he provides GitHub repos with branches for each section of the course.

I learned React through a Nanodegree initially then took a couple courses from Grider. If I had it to do over again, I would have just gone with Grider's courses. They're really top tier.

https://www.udemy.com/course/node-with-react-fullstack-web-development/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=email&utm_source=sendgrid.com

Hugely helpful and modular components to learn. MERN OAuth included!

I could, but I don’t recommend learning angular (if you havent learned any ui framework already). I recommend this React/MERN course:

https://www.udemy.com/course/node-with-react-fullstack-web-development/

Its MERN instead of MEAN (aka they use React instead of Angular).

My argument for learning React is a lot of Companies are switching over to React. And in general, MOST (before reddit trolls try to say “i thought myself x and i got hired to do x”) companies wont hire new grads based on the actual skill they know, they wanna see how proactive you are in learning new things outside of ur college career.

Once you finish the course, make a app that you will enjoy coding. Making an app by yourself and flexing it on ur resume will go a long way.

Bonus tip: if you like React and like mobile as well, try adding Ionic on top of your React before you make it. As long as your comfortable with the base React stuff, other wise IF the extra layer of ionic is confusing, you can forget about it. Just make an app that you’ll be comfortable producing

If you want to make apps, learning Node.js (and Express) is a really good idea. Node is the 'backend' for JavaScript. An oversimplification of what that means is: a backend allows you to add a database so that you can persist data. So, like, you can make an app that people sign into and it saves the username and password and and whatever info they put in. (If you're making a to-do list app, this is how a user could save their to-do lists for example.) You can't really make an app without a backend, just a simple website.

I'm a big fan of FreeCodeCamp and it looks like they have a Node/Express course for free. https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/free-8-hour-node-express-course/

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React is a nice web framework to learn if you're making complex apps, but it's not as necessary as learning Node/Express so I'd start with that. React is essentially a fancy way to organize the JavaScript that goes into your HTML pages. So when you're using lots and lots of JS, React is really great. I love it! But it's not a necessary part of having a working webapp.

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Stephen Grider makes awesome courses so you could check those out too. https://www.udemy.com/user/sgslo/ He has one called Node with React: Fullstack Web Development, and a bunch of others. You'd probably do best with either https://www.udemy.com/course/javascript-beginners-complete-tutorial/ or https://www.udemy.com/course/node-with-react-fullstack-web-development/

His Interview Bootcamp was sooooo useful to me when I was studying for interviews- he explains things very well and doesn't make you feel stupid for not already knowing it, like some teachers do.

Take these course you won't regret it

1. https://www.udemy.com/course/the-complete-nodejs-developer-course-2/

2. https://www.udemy.com/course/node-with-react-fullstack-web-development/

3. https://www.udemy.com/course/advanced-node-for-developers/

4. https://www.udemy.com/course/the-complete-junior-to-senior-web-developer-roadmap/

Take those 4 course all your all set

Yeah, this person above is being a bit harsh. What's the point of having a forum to ask questions if we can't ask one that seem simple to more experienced people. I've only been coding professionally for about 6 months and I've had many times where I've been out of my depth and had to ask stupid questions, one time in particular sticks out where I couldn't make a Map in Java.

Ok so heres the deal: sibling components CANNOT pass data between between each other. They can only share data from a parent component. You have a few options here:

1. Hava a parent component that contains the data you need and pass it down as props. See here about how to do that, basically just write "<Route {...rest} render={routeProps => ( <FadeIn> <Component {...routeProps} /> </FadeIn> )} />" like they should, where render takes an argument of props, and you can pass in props as you wish. Here's another example of me doing this poorly when I learned React: <Route
   path='/holdings-show'
   render={(props) => <HoldingShow {...props}
   asset={this.state.selectedHolding}
   changeSelectedPage={this.changeSelectedPage}
   sellHolding={this.sellHolding} /> }
   />.

2. (This is probably the answer you need) have a global state object that contains the shared data you need between views. You can either do this with context (which I haven't done) or Redux (which I use every day). Having a global state object means you have a global object external to any component which contains all shared data, like auth info or anything else. This is a great course I took where they implement something just like this.

There's a lot of info about using typescript with React online: here seems good, here is also a good intro. You definitely have access to 'this', 'props', 'setState' etc in TypeScript, I think you are just having some syntax issue perhaps. I think the docs for MDN and React are always the best place to start.

A few disclaimers: although I'm currently working professionally in React/Redux, I've only been doing so since June, and a have only been looking into TS in terms of planning to move to it rather than using it at my job, which is all React/Redux without typescript(and a smattering of other stuff). Also, I've never done auth professionally, was set up way before I got there at my current position, only done oAuth in the course linked above and one or two others.

If you continue to have issues, post your code, and feel free to PM me. I am sure you'll get it , just takes a bit of time working in this stuff to get a sense of how/what to do.

Learn Javascript. Its the most used language as its the language of the Web and Node is used extensively as a backend solution. Its package support is great. Its also, tbh, quite easy to learn relative to the other languages.

Start with Javascript - this is a good course.

Then you have the choice to either be a front end dev, ie websites, backend ie servers, or fullstack, both.

For front end, learn ReactJS. This course is decent.

For backend, learn NodeJS, a server framework like ExpressJS or Apollo Server, and a database solution ie MongoDB or Postgres (I would suggest Postgres - this is a good course). A decent course for Node could be this.

From there, I would recommend learning Typescript, and concepts such as Testing (particularly TDD) and CI/CD. This is a decent course for typescript.

Put yourself a portfolio together and start look at Junior Dev positions.

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You can 100% turn your life around... I did. Hold down a part time job to keep some money coming in (or live off savings if you can), and just bang out these courses as though you were at school/college (ie 5-6 hours a day if you can manage). Once you've done say 3-6 months worth, you'll be able to get a first job. Once you get one (and you will, just keep trying, and if you need to, keep learning), you'll have your foot in the door and your life will change pretty quickly.