I think it is not suitable for beginners and I’m completely lost with Node JS before, during and after the learnyounode tutorial. Every single time, I had to look for the solution and still couldn’t figure it out how it works.
There are TOO MANY parts moving (http, tcp, streams, pipe, request, response, async, callbacks, ports, to name a few).
I’m frustrated and I don’t know how to keep going with the Back End program.
In the end, I ended up watching tutorial videos on YouTube and it helped understanding the basic. I’ve then went back to learnyounode and it made more sense
I did the samething for express lessons as well-- watch youtube tutorial , and then do the learnexpress
Thank you @Neotriz. I think my journey with NodeJS is going to take me more time than what Front End took me.
I taught myself PHP when I was 17 and I could create a full webpage with little knowledge. Although PHP seems to be an awful language (that’s what I read every day), it is easy to understand and learn. It’s a shame
Yeah, I have my criticism about the Back-end curriculum FCC. Coming from no background of backend, I am still having trouble understanding how to apply the knowledge in my projects.
But I suppose thats part of the nature of self-learning; you just gotta figure out yourself and do research.
I would check out udemy’s free course on mongodb, express and mongoose.
@P1xt, thanks for the link! I wish I knew about this course…Is there way for FCC to have some sort recommendation links prior to future campers that will begin the backend curriculum?
oooooh! thank you!
I had the same problem and ended up buying a course on udemy. The course is great (really gets you started from scratch) but it was using sql databases. I had been looking to learn how to build mongo into all this.
That is one of the primary purposes of this forum, but it’s not necessarily the easiest thing to search in order to find those resources. It’s still a very young forum though, and we get to shape it into the excellent resource it can one day be. (Although I already think it’s an awesome resource, it could still do better).
One solution could be to create a Wiki post (on the forum) that lists extra resources.
I’ll start one, set it as a wiki and then anyone with a user level of ‘Basic user’ and above can freely edit it
Actually, no need to make one - Rafase already ported one over from the original wiki. This didn’t pop up in my first search, but as soon as I started making one it popped up as a ‘similar’ post
Hello everyone. I came here to tell you that I’m tired
I tried the course @P1xt suggested but my sensation of being lost exponentially grow. Mocca, Gulp, unit testing? Each video explains them very briefly and then you have to write 2 lines of code and BAM! Done, you are done with the course. WHAT!!?? It’s so short that I leave with A LOT of code I didn’t understand.
Then I tried something not so complicated so I took a course in the MongoDB University.
MY GOD! They do the same thing (but not so much). This time I’m introduced to Express and templates engines (and that’s just week 1).
I don’t know what to do now.
If you ask me to create a very very very simple webpage from scratch the only thing I learned is where to download files to start copy/paste-ing things. I know how to “insert()” and “find()” in MongoDB and run the database. Well, that’s it. Just that
And I think the question which answer I really want to know is:
How do you learn web development (MEAN Stack)? In what order one should approach each of the tools? Is it possible to learn each of them alone without using the others?
Thanks all of you who are willing to help me in this matter.
Hey, how long did you try the learnyounode tutorials? I did them this week, but I thought that though the solutions can be weird/illogical (if you have no experience with node), by some trial and error you would get there. If you have completed them all, it makes more sense. That said, I still have to do the timestamp microservice so maybe I slightly overestimate my ability
This Thread is relevant to my interests . I too struggled with the learn you node tutorial. I tried to use numerous other sources and was still left with a large gap in even the basic understandings.
As someone who finished it a couple of days back, I definitely understand feeling lost after the first few lessons. However they’ve included the docs with the module, and I think the point is to go through those repeatedly while doing the course. I still don’t have a very solid grasp on it, but I’m able to make (really simple) apps with Node and Express after finishing learnyounode and half of expressworks.
Compared to say, Django or Rails, Node and Express are really minimal and after a couple of days start making sense. Just keep powering through, read the docs and maybe go through the edX course.
I’d recommend building something lightweight before moving on to using MongoDB and Angular. Again, I’m saying this because it helped me out a lot to do a small project that took a day or so, which uses just node and express.
Hey everybody, I’m just starting out on the back end and am in a similar boat. I’ve worked through the git, node and express lessons and am currently working on the mongodb lesson. I agree, I don’t feel much more prepared to start the back end projects than before. I’m having a lot of trouble getting through the mongodb lesson (which is why I found this post).
One resource I can suggest is the Net Ninja’s YouTube tutorials. He put one out for Node JS for beginners. I’m about half way through them, (there are currently 37 videos) and I’ve learned a lot so far. I noticed he starts working through a to-do list app in the later videos and uses MongoDB. I’m hoping this helps, but I haven’t gotten that far, so can’t speak to it.
I watched a couple of his videos on the front end as well and highly recommend them, especially the one on responsive web design…
I may look into that edX course… I have a feeling the back end is going to be a lot harder for me than the front end was.
I have to get this off my chest. I can’t get my head around node. Whatever I try. I’ve looked at all the courses but I feel lost in all the extra modules, editors, databases, pre-processsors, frameworks, template engines… that you’re supposed to know as well. What is really essential and what is a cool extra feature,. I cannot see it. I’d like bare bone node examples that show how to post some form data to another doc with a node server. Once I get that, I’d like to see how this is done with express, then I’d like to use a template engine as well and continue to build on top of it. i can’t find that info . What I do find is people who use all sorts of fancy stuff to make it all ‘easy’. It’s driving me crazy. I can copy code, I can see that it works but I DO NOT UNDERSTAND IT. The first do this and then do that courses make me ask a million questions and they add to the growing panic rather than resolve it. That being said the netninja course and bucky roberts’ course are really very good, they show a lot of stuff you can do and really try to reach out to people like me. But somehow all I learn is exactly what they show me. Exactly that. Books often assume a level that is too hight for me. I’ve really tried and I just don’t know what to do anymore. Maybe I’m just stupid.
Thanks for the tip, I’ve got the books but I have skimmed, I must confess. I have these weak moments, this time I hit ‘reply’… I think it’s not just node, it’s also ajax. I know how to get stuf but I’m struggling with post requests and parsing json data. I have learned to do a few things in Node like serve a file, an image in a file (with and without express), I learned to pass info through socket.io., It;s not all bad. I think I also need to understand better what processes are involved when a browser talks to a server, a server talks to a db and then all the iinfo comes back. The more I read, the more I see that it’s not just node, it’s also understanding the internet and what i/o really is about. Thanks for the reply, I’m still on it, in fact I’m incapable of letting it go, if I could, I wouldn’t be moaning about it
My experience with learnyounode was very different. While I don’t claim to understand it, I can get it started and serve web pages, create routes with express, etc. I found the learnyou… series to be very helpful for the microAPI projects since they are mostly variations on the learnyounode themes.
As far as learn you node specifically, I found each lesson to be a bit like a puzzle…most of the code needed was in the problem description. Most of what I did was drop the sample code in and chnage the params to use the passed in functions as described in the instructions. It felt very “plug and play” to me.
I think if ou approach node hoping to understand HOW all the pieces worktogether you’ll be frustrated. But just from the perspective of solving a jigsaw puzzle of tiny code pieces, it worked for me.
I did have to look for solutions sometimes, but always then rewrote my own code to be sure I could get it working.
I’ve done learnyounode twice, 1 year apart, and after the 2nd time was able to crank out the first 2 micro API projects easily.
If you’re struggling, try doing one of hte microAPI projects and learn to a) serve an index page b) grab parameters passed into the URL 3) do something with those parameters 4) Send it to a page via a new route (using express).
