My Journey So Far On Learning To Write The MERN Stack.
Published: 2022-03-23 19:52:52

Learning to code in any particular language can be both interesting and frustrating. It can be interesting by the time one would have started to get a hang on everything happening under the hood. Also, it can be frustrating and sometime depressing when nothing you've tried seems to work.
In this short article I will try to talk about my journey so far on learning how to code in JavaScript.

**The Beginning**

It was about sometime in 2020 after the lock-down had started that I decided that I was going to a little more carefully learn how to code after several failed attempts on my part to learn to code.

I wasn't sure of what to learn in particular. web development? Mobile development? Data science? etc.
I had a good number of beautiful options to choose from. The decision to settle for web development came as a result of the environment I stayed in about the time.

I picked-up HTML and then CSS. I made a lot of references to YouTube for resources. Some how, during this time, I was able to build a number of projects: ranging from clone of websites to simulating app design(UIs). 

I had to convince myself that it was time for me to pick-up JavaScript, because, about the time, I was quite 'scared' of learning it. Majority of what was happening there didn't make any sense to me. The implication was that I just needed to dedicate some good time to practice. I began getting a hang on what was been said in the articles I was reading and some of the tutorial videos I was watching after some time.

I needed to build some projects!

So I ended up building few JS projects such as todo app, recipe app etc.

Some how I felt a bit of confidence inside of me that I could do more. This was what led to my decision to learn the MERN STACK.

The acronym mern stands for: MongoDB, ExpressJS, ReactJS and NodeJS. 

The journey so far has been quite an interesting one. On a daily basis I get bumped into new interesting concept(s) that sometimes seem really overwhelming.

I adopted to trade along this path instead of the conventional: HTML --> CSS --> JS --> React --> anything else, because I see in myself a very curious restless learner that is ready to go to any length to get what I want.

**Major Challenges So Far.**

. The code in some of the resources I got to use were either too verbose or deprecated about the time I was going to use them. As a consequence, I was compelled to surf the internet spending more time than I should if I had been given access to the needed resources. 

You may want to ask the question on why I wasn't going to want to enroll in a paid course. Truth is most of the less expensive courses especially on Udemy are out of date. The good ones you may find around are pretty very expensive. As a result, I went mostly for the open-source materials I found on YouTube, Udacity, etc.

. Coming from an African society, power supply was always going to be a major learning blocker. One way, I am able to a reasonable extent manage the situation, was to register to use an open space library whose power is considerably stable.

**Summary**

Truth is, learning to code hasn't be easy. But I can tell you for free that I am beginning to enjoy the whole learning phase. And I am happy that I am learning and practicing everyday.

I just can't wait to get through with the learning phase so as to get my hands really wet with bigger and more interesting projects. 

Until then, happy coding!