The MERN stack rose as a popular stack that eases delivering high-quality products with scalable technologies.
Yet, there are some best practices to consider before starting your process, even if you are building MERN stack practice projects.
From its components to its role in Computer Science and UX/UI Design, let’s see how to successfully build MERN Stack products!
What is MERN Stack?
The MERN Stack receives its name from the acronym of its main components: Mongo, Express, React, and Node.
Conceived in 2013, the MERN Stack was created to make development processes simpler and more effective.
A key reasons for its popularity is its use of single language (JavaScript) for Front and Back End operations.
That’s without mentioning its several packages and libraries for high flexibility and scalability.
As a result, it's suitable for a wide array of applications, from small startups to large enterprises.
Best Practices for MERN Stack Elements
As mentioned, the MERN Stack comprises four technologies. Let's divide the best practices according to each of its components:
Best Practices on MongoDB
Also known as just Mongo, MongoDB is a document-oriented NoSQL Database Management System (DBMS).
As of best practices, we can mention Mongoose, the popular JS library that allows to define schemes.
This feature its great to guarantee consistency in structuring and validating properties.
You can also harness Middleware for data validation or registration in addition to lean queries,.
Here, Mongoose provides fully populated documents from queries by default.
Additionally, there’s the .lean() function that returns plain JavaScript objects without format.
Best Practices on Express.js
The stack's only application framework is ideal for building server-side applications with Node.js.
Express also allows harnessing Middleware, which is great for data validation, authentication and registration.
You can enable HTTP caching to reduce server requests with a template engine.
This allows for writing simple HTML markups, rendering HTML pages, and easing code reuse.
Here, error-handling middleware allows you to detect and handle errors in your routes or middleware functions.
As a result, you can ensure that your solution doesn't crash.
Even if errors occur, users would receive the appropriate error messages.
Best Practices on React.js
The JS library React is key in building MERN Stack User Interfaces that meet expectations.
Here, a best practice is leveraging its functional and easier-to-test components.
It's also key to properly integrate hooks to manage state and side effects instead of just using class-based components.
You can use hooks like useMemo and useCallback to optimize the performance of its components, avoiding unnecessary renderings.
Likewise, context APIs can help to pass data down the component tree without passing props through multiple levels.
Tip: the React Developer Tools browser extension can be quite useful for debugging and inspecting your React components!
Best Practices on Node.js
Lastly, Node.js is a JS environment for building scalable network apps.
It's particularly known for its high capacity to handle large simultaneous connections.
Here, the async/await syntax can help when writing asynchronous code to ease reading and debugging.
This alsohelpsmanaging concurrent connections and getting data from servers.
You can also use commonJS or ES modules to organize its code into small, reusable pieces.
Memory cache tools like Redis or Memcached can also reduce your memory load.
10 Best Practices for MERN Stack Development
Other practices can be incorporated into MERN Stack, including:
- Modular Architecture. MERN uses a modular architecture to ease maintenance and updating. Change in one component don't affect others.
- Code Reusability. Teams can build components that can be used later to save time and reduce written code.
- State Management. Centrally-located state management helps teams store and manage component data to guarantee accessibility.
- Linting Tools. Linting tools verify code quality and help maintain coherence to facilitate maintenance and updating.
- Stack Testing. MERN eases testing procedures with tools like Jest, Mocha and Chai, whether it’s unit or integration tests.
- MERN CI/CD. Devs can leverage Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment to guarantee efficient code changes.
- MERN + Docker. With Docker, devs can optimize management and scaling as containers are deployed.
- Product Scalability. With load balancing and horizontal scaling, teams can plan from the beginning to handles increasing traffic levels.
- User Experience. While often underestimated, developing intuitive User Interfaces that consider speed and responsiveness is also key !
Key Considerations for MERN Stack Development
Beyond these practices, knowing about MERN hosting is also quite important.
The best fit on hosting can be crucial to product success!
Regarding security, bet on input validation, data sanitization and password hashing recommendations.
To protect sensitive data, use secure protocols like HTTPS for all communications between FE and BE.
Also, implement authentication and authorization processes.
When discussing maintainability, leverage descriptive variable names, code commenting and compact, reusable functions and components.
Remember to debug your front-end and back-end code through tools like Chrome DevTools and Node.js debugger!
Conclusion
Keep up with the latest trends on the MERN Stack through experts, blogs and conferences.
But, most importantly, experiment with MERN stack projects to get a deeper dive!
Are you looking to build the next MERN-base innovative solution? Get in touch!
