Overview:
Movie Craze is a full stack web application that utilizes the MERN stack. Users of this app are able to browse info on movies, genres and directors. After creating an account, users can change their user info as well as create and edit a list of their personal favorite movies.
Purpose & Context:
Movie Craze was a project I created during my full stack development course through CareerFoundry. This ambitious application was meant to refine my JavaScript skills as well as learn the MERN stack.
Objective:
The goal of Movie Craze was to test and expand my JavaScript skills by creating my first full stack application. In addition to learning the MERN stack, this project would also familiarize me with the concept of frameworks and servers, leaving me with a well rounded development toolkit.
The Process:
Step 1: Build a server to handle requests
Building the server for this app was like laying the foundation for the front end. All of the functionality I would be giving to the client side would come from the work I was putting in here. Creating the back end served as my introduction to Node, MongoDB, Mongoose, Express, PostgreSQL, Postman, among other tools, and put new focus on making quality and timely commits to GitHub.
Building the server had its difficulties, but with help from my amazing mentor and tutor, I was able to get through it without any catastrophic issues. One of the biggest things I learned during this phase was the value in taking breaks and when to take them. Learning when it was time to take a break quickly became one of my most important tools to stay productive.
Step 2: Create the client side of Movie Craze
The client side was where all of the hard work I’d put in on the backend could finally be shown off. Through the implementation of React, I would be able to generate visual components from the database I’d created along with the server side of the app. I’ll never forget how powerful I felt writing code for a single component, then watching it populate a list of formatted items for each movie in my database.
Learning to manage data throughout my app was by far my biggest hurdle, and one I may not have made it past without the help of my amazing mentor. Through our weekly sessions, I learned how to zero in on errors by following the data and working through the code systematically as well as refining how I taught myself new tools
Conclusion:
Movie Craze was an incredibly demanding project and definitely the toughest challenge I’ve faced so far. However, that struggle led to massive growth as a developer and taught me the true strength of being part of a team. Working with others on debugging informed my approach to finding errors in ways that I may not have learned so quickly on my own. Working on this app has refined my problem solving skills and created an undeniable hunger for larger projects with bigger teams.