Working through user auth right now, it is the most complex thing I’ve done so far on the back end.
Curious what other projects would make for both a good stretching of my back end skills, and a good portfolio piece for an aspiring web developer.
My project also involves fetching table data but I believe that is more front end work than back end (I think it’ll just require a db query)
Thanks for any ideas!
I would recommend just building an ecommerce site. Just build it one piece at a time. You’ll figure what the problems are as you go. You’ll make a lot of mistakes. You’ll have to go back and redo things. In a way that’s better - because you’ll really learn why things are done a certain way. And in the end you’ll have an amazing portfolio piece. So, what other problems are there? Maintaining the inventory? Submitting orders? Sending info to your shipping department? Letting them update stock? Letting an admin add new items to the caelog and remove old ones, update prices, photos, and details? Handling payments? Refunds? Are there common libraries that handle these? Or would it be better to build it yourself?
Mentally go through the workflow. What do you expect as a user on Amazon? What would you expect as a seller? Being able to envision what is needed is a skill, one that you develop. A client may not always be able to tell you exactly what to do. They say they want an Auth system, but what is someone looses a password? What if they need to ban a user? A mailing list? Get a history of purchases? These are things you’re just supposed to figure out for them. Even if you don’t build them right away, you may want to be aware of them as you design.
Just build. There is no perfect guide, and you’ll probably learn more from your mistakes. Give yourself permission to make mistakes.