October 10, 2025 • 29 mins
The popular MERN stack tutorials and the larger JavaScript ecosystem in general has failed to prepare junior developers for professional jobs. This is a rant about that...
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Don Hansen (00:00):
The Mernstack tutorial has failed you.
If you are a junior developertrying to become a professional
developer, you've most likelybeen introduced to MERnstack
tutorials.
It's just this templatedapproach that is pushed
everywhere where it has been formany years.
And this is what you need todive into to become a developer
(00:23):
as fast as possible.
And a very common question Iget is, Don, how do I become a
developer as fast as possible?
And I respond with, well,that's a problem with your
question.
The word fast should not evenbe involved.
But Don, I have to become adeveloper within three months,
within six months.
I just I have to, or I'mscrewed financially.
(00:46):
It's like, what, what the fuck?
What why are you screwed if youdon't become a developer?
And so I think some people theylook at coding as this savior
of all their poor financialhabits or poor financial or
situations that affected theirfinances negatively.
(01:07):
Usually it's poor financialhabits and just poor habits in
general.
Um coding isn't gonna save you.
And this is like one of thefirst things that I tell people
coding is not going to save yourfinancial situation.
It is going to take way toolong for that to save most of
(01:29):
you.
And a lot of people, they don'tdeal with this well.
And so they get into coding,and they might believe me, they
might not, but they pursue itanyways, and they get into
coding with this idea that Ihave to become a developer as
(01:50):
fast as possible.
What is the most efficientpath, right?
And so here comes the MERNSTACtutorial, which was very popular
in coding boot camps for thelongest time, for years.
And it taught you that you canlearn the front end and back end
(02:11):
with JavaScript.
In itself, that isn't such abad idea.
Despite what some other peoplethink, I think JavaScript on the
back end works just fine formajority of applications,
majority of professionalapplications with large teams
working on them.
(02:32):
But if you look at a lot ofyour typical MERN stack
tutorials, I'm just gonna jumpto it.
They are way too surface level.
And so what I want to sharewith you is why they're so
surface level and what youprobably should be expanding on.
But a lot of like a lot of thetutorials really started to
(02:57):
evolve and take shape and becomea template because of the
coding bootcamp industry.
And so you would learn HTML,you would learn semantic HTML,
now we gotta style it, now wegot to bring some interactivity
into it with some JavaScript,and then we need to make some
API calls.
And what happens when we makethose API calls?
(03:18):
Where do they go?
Just they go into a black box.
We have no idea.
And so we learn kind of whatthat black box is.
We don't quite learn how itworks, but we learn what it is
and what it sends back to us andwhat we can expect, right?
And so we're still kind ofexploring the front end.
Most people go down this path,they start with the front end
and then eventually they moveinto the back end, right?
(03:40):
Okay, so what is this blackbox?
How does it work?
Right?
How does it figure out what itneeds to send me?
And so very basic things spinup a node app, and then we learn
routing with Express, and thenwe can respond to the client,
which is really cool, and thenwe want to save our data and we
want to manipulate that data,right?
(04:00):
And so what tends to happen iswhen you approach coding through
JavaScript, very often it'spurpose-driven.
And this is a bad thing to anextent.
Meaning, actually, let meclarify it.
(04:21):
You want to see a practicalresult of you learning to code.
You need to build anapplication, and so you are
offered project-based learning,which again, in itself, isn't
bad.
But project-based learningoften is a little bit gamified,
(04:43):
and it's meant to keep yourattention because you have the
attention of a goldfish, andcourse creators know that,
right?
So project-based learning keepsyour attention, it keeps you
moving forward, and you aregrowing a little bit.
The problem with this, it's notthe path of kind of learning
(05:05):
the front end and the back endthat's the problem.
The problem is the JavaScriptecosystem.
This is I I was thinking aboutif I wanted to expand on this.
I don't think I'm gonna go intoa lot of detail.
It is important, but a problemwith the JavaScript ecosystem is
everyone has trained each otherto just lean heavily on
abstractions very quickly,right?
(05:26):
If we want to get a project up,we want to get it up in front
of a user, and then we want tobuild a back end for it.
We want to get it working,right?
And so the typical CRUD app iswhat is taught with a lot of
these Mern Stack tutorials, andwe get an app working.
That's kind of cool.
Here's the problem.
We can add abstractions tomaybe go the service serverless
(05:52):
route.
We can um choose an ORM to makethis a little bit more
convenient for us.
We can um use maybe somebuilt-in caching with the
templating system that we'reimplementing.
But a lot of these tutorialsjust teach you how to get a
(06:17):
working app up.
They don't teach you how theseabstractions work.
I think it's completely fine tolearn Full Stack in the
JavaScript ecosystem.
I think it's fine to learn thebackend with JavaScript, but all
too quickly these tutorialsramp you up into abstractions
(06:39):
and get you to be lazy.
They distract you from wantingto go deeper.
Abstractions are the solutionin the JavaScript world.
The JavaScript ecosystem isabout enabling indie hackers and
businesses to be able to justlearn one language and get an
(07:03):
entire application up andrunning.
That is kind of the culturearound it.
The focus is on buildingapplications, building web apps.
The focus is not going lowerlevel.
You aren't touching anythingpast even the abstraction that
(07:26):
JavaScript is.
You don't have to do any manualgarbage collection.
A lot of these libraries comewith caching systems, so you
don't have to learn caching.
A lot of times you might gothrough an SQL course, right?
And you'll kind of learn somebasic SQL commands, but you
don't really learn how heavysome of these commands are with
(07:49):
large sets of data.
And if you do, there you goover it briefly just to learn
it.
Hey, we taught you this.
We introduced this informationto you.
Now let us give you an ORM tomake this easier because
companies use ORMs.
And that's easier.
(08:10):
It's easier to maintain with anORM.
It's easier to build kind of alot of helper functions and get
these convenient life cyclehooks in there that you don't
have to build out.
It's just this is whatprofessional companies do.
This is what you see inprofessional applications, and
this is all true, and this isalso very misleading.
(08:34):
Because good developers, reallygood developers, don't need
these abstractions.
Good developers have probablyexplored other programming
languages.
Good developers have thought tothemselves that I don't think I
(08:58):
feel comfortable or trust theseabstractions and how they're
working.
Like, why do I need theseabstractions?
Why are they being pushed infront of me?
I'm curious how they work underthe hood.
Good developers will actuallydig into the code.
Good developers will build abasic MVC framework themselves.
(09:21):
Good developers will build abasic caching system themselves.
I'm not saying you're going tobe building like a production
ready caching system.
But as a junior developer, ifyou don't know how to build a
really basic one, you've beenmisled.
You should be able to.
When you build up a solidfoundation and you get a little
(09:48):
bit of guidance to like w evenjust utilizing a caching system,
how it works, and thencustomizing it a little bit to
get an idea of how it works, youshould be able to build a basic
one.
You should have it's just a lotof these abstractions are just
fundamentals built onfundamentals built on
fundamentals, and they're justbuilding blocks.
And there's just somedisconnect with MERN stack
(10:14):
tutorials that don't encouragedevelopers to dive lower level,
to be curious about how theseabstractions work.
And so then you get this pushof well, a lot of companies are
(10:38):
hiring full stack positionsright now, and we're not really
seeing as many like front-endfocus positions or back-end
focus positions, which there area lot.
I think a lot of people justhave trouble finding them.
Um that that again, differentvideos, I'm not going to expand
on that.
But next JS has beensignificantly pushed out to so
(11:04):
many junior developers that ifyou just learn the front end and
then you learn React and thenyou learn next, now you are
going to be marketable as a fullstack developer.
JavaScript, I I want to touchon next in a sec, but JavaScript
(11:28):
just keeps evolving into thispattern of abstractions and then
eventually serverless andtrying to disconnect.
It's like JavaScript is kind ofjust being formed for a lot of
indie hackers who don't reallycare to be good developers.
You can, JavaScript can supportreally good software engineers,
but a lot of the tutorials,especially aimed at junior
(11:49):
developers, lead them down thewrong path with the wrong
mindset to just be comfortablewith these abstractions.
Just let them in.
And so you get a lot of peoplethat now have found this new
templated approach.
Companies are hiring a lot offull stack developers.
Let's learn next.
That's full stack, right?
(12:10):
You don't know a fucking thingabout the back end if you are
telling anyone that you are afull stack developer because you
can build an application withnext.
You don't know what the fuckyou're talking about.
And that is concerning.
Because I know a lot of juniordevelopers have this belief and
they are following this path ofthe full stack JavaScript path,
(12:34):
and it is failing them.
We shouldn't be adopting, likeif you're aiming for full stack,
and especially back end, weshouldn't be adopting serverless
solutions.
We should be rolling our ownauth.
And maybe this is where I'mjust gonna start diving into
things that most MERN stacktutorials, JavaScript tutorials,
(12:57):
don't dive deep into.
And you know what?
I'm not even gonna start on theback end, I'm gonna start on
the front end.
By the way, if you are divingdeep into Node and you've
already built a few things withExpress, it might be time to
challenge yourself with a morescalable framework, NSJS.
It's one of the most popularframeworks for Node, and I
personally use it to build myprojects.
It's one of the reasons why Idecided to build a course for
(13:19):
it, to get people up to speedwith the basics.
You can find that course atScrimba.com.
Oh, it's also free.
If you use my link in thedescription to sign up for
Scrimba, and you decide toupgrade to the pro plan, which
unlocks a ton of differentcourses, you actually get a
discount.
Again, I partner with thembecause they are actually really
good at building up juniordevelopers.
(13:40):
Check it out.
What do you have to lose?
Now let's get back to thevideo.
A lot of times you'll justlearn HTML, CSS, JavaScript,
React, and then eventually Next.
Most companies don't use Next,by the way.
Actually, I do want toemphasize that.
Again, no notes, a littlescattered, so I'll go back and
forth.
(14:01):
But most companies aren't usingNext.js.
Most companies that are hiringfull stack software engineers,
they're hiring softwareengineers with experience.
They're hiring real full stacksoftware engineers, not fucking
posers, not people who aren'twho don't care about being good
developers, who are outsourcinga lot of their back-end to
(14:24):
serverless solutions, to reallyjust easy abstractions, or even
just like outsourcing, likesetting up some SDK with
superbase and storing data thatway, and they kind of provide a
really convenient authenticationsolution.
You don't really have to learnauthentication.
It's companies aren't lookingfor developers that are going
(14:48):
down that path.
They're looking for actual gooddevelopers that have spread
that have solved problems bothon the front end and back end
over time with their experience.
Just because you see more ofthose positions does not mean
you're going to become moremarketable by trying to become a
full-stack developer.
But you're not really learning.
(15:09):
So React, you know, it's it'sjust a library.
It's not a full framework.
Um, you have to come up withyour own architecture.
A lot of people will justorganize the files by types and
call it a day because they'rebuilding really simple
applications that don't requireyou to have to organize your app
(15:30):
so it's not this chaotic messin six months.
And then no one wants to touchRedux.
Sometimes companies do prefer alittle bit more of uh they want
more debugging options and theywant kind of a stricter data
flow, and they might evenimplement something custom
(15:53):
similar to Redux, right?
Um, a lot of your JavaScripttutorials aren't going over
Angular and how Angular doesthings and how it separates
things.
No, they just introduce you tothe Wild West that is React,
where even if you go intodifferent companies, you're just
gonna get tons oforganizational patterns and it
(16:15):
just gets messy with Reactpretty quickly, unless you bring
in 15,000 libraries that arejust based off of the preference
of the developers on the team.
And then a lot of testing,writing automated tests, they're
(16:36):
not really pushed in tutorials.
They're like, hey, you probablyshould do this.
Here's how you do it.
Let's write a test, and thenwe're gonna move on.
Because that's not the mainthing.
Well, it's not the main thing,but a lot of companies want you
to be able to write automatedtests, and they want you to know
what to test.
How the hell do you know whatto test if you're not writing
(16:57):
tests?
How do you know what to test ifyou don't start ramping up a
lot of the automated tests basedoff of you creating a shitload
of bugs that goes out to users,you have unhappy users, and you
want to reduce that.
That's what automated tests arefor.
I don't really believe in, Imean, I guess automated tests
(17:19):
can help you solidify therequirements of the app and what
your functions do.
They can also be a bit ofdocumentation, but I think good
function names can do that.
I think good tickets can dothat, good GitHub issues can do
that.
Like, really, they do tend toprevent bugs down the road,
especially for core parts ofyour application.
(17:40):
But what does that even mean?
If I'm gonna write automatedtests for core parts of my
application, what's core?
You don't fucking know becauseyou've just seen in the typical
MernStack tutorial that youshould write tests.
Write a few tests.
What the fuck does that evenmean on the front end?
It's way different than theback end, by the way.
There are very differenttesting philosophies on the
front end and back end.
(18:01):
Now, how the fuck are you gonnaknow that because Mernstack
tutorials don't cover this shit?
They really don't.
Or they don't enforce it, orjunior developers are not given
the right mindset to take thisstuff seriously.
And so a lot of Mernstacktutorials will briefly touch on
(18:22):
maybe maybe you should use aCDM, whatever that is, right?
A cache of stings.
That's cool.
Maybe it's like a lot of thesethings that are actually pretty
important.
It's like, well, here it is,here's what it is, and you
should use it, but here's likethe main thing you really should
focus on.
And so, what do what are yougonna do as a new developer
coming in and you're like, man,this is taking a long time and
(18:42):
forgetting some things, I gottafocus on certain things.
I just you start neglecting allthis stuff that matters that
when you're hired, they want youto at least be familiar with
like how to use a CD and how tostore stuff in it, and like how
it works and why you want to useit.
They want you to be comfortablewith automated testing, and you
(19:03):
should kind of understandrequests and headers, things
that you might see if you openup the network tab.
But do you really know it?
Do you really know a lot of theheaders that are used in a lot
(19:25):
of your um request cycles andhow they change and when they
change, why they change, and howeach of those specific headers
affect things?
You really know?
No.
Because MERN stack tutorials byand large do not go over this
stuff.
So you have aspiring front enddevelopers that have no fucking
(19:51):
idea like what the client iseven doing.
They just make an API request.
I get it, JSON data back, andI've built an app.
So is 500 other people that areapplying for the same position
you are.
That's just the front end, andthere are actually quite a bit
(20:12):
more.
I I'm realizing this video isgonna be a long one.
It's quite a few more thingsthat I think people are lacking
on the front end, but you know,it let's just assume you don't
get trapped in the next worldand you actually start diving
into the back end, and maybe Iwant to become a back-end
software engineer.
Like, how many Mernstacktutorials are getting you or
(20:33):
courses are getting you to likereally practice Docker
containerization?
And then, like, let's even saywe're in the node world, right?
Um, what are we gonna use umalongside Docker?
Maybe Docker Compose, a lot ofapps, but you you know I'm
right.
If you've you see this intutorials, they're pushing
things like they used to pushHeroku.
(20:54):
Um, they would push uh now.
I think it's like render andrailway are like the two easy
solutions.
Or if you're using a nextapplication, you're gonna use a
Vercell solution, just easyhosting solutions.
Uh if you're trying to become abackend developer, I I just
you're just hopeless if you'retrying to like build
(21:16):
applications with Next.js.
I hope no one is doing that.
I know a few people are pleasestop that.
So we're gonna assume thatyou're not trapped in this next
world, right?
So now a lot of back-enddevelopers kind of have a node
app, but they're encouraged topush it towards um into a uh
easy hosting solution, like oneof the ones that I just
(21:37):
mentioned.
But you never get practice withsetting it up with a VPS.
A lot of MernStack tutorialsaren't going heavy into Linux
stuff and permission stuff.
Like you hosting something on aespecially like an unmanaged
VPS is just a security nightmarefor your application.
And then where do you host adatabase?
(21:59):
How do you host it on thatserver?
Do you want to abstract it outto a different server?
What the fuck do you do to havethese multiple services that
you need running for yourbackend?
Because you really haven'tpracticed containerization yet.
You haven't really practicedcreating kind of a template with
Docker to be able to spin someof this stuff up easily.
And then what happens if um youdo like maybe you run a managed
(22:24):
solution, now you have to go toan unmanaged VPS and uh because
you're running low on money,because I'm assuming we're
moving away from easy hostingsolutions that are usually free.
Now we we gotta pay for someshit.
You probably don't want to paya lot, so it's gonna be
unmanaged.
So, like a lot of aspiringbackend developers should be
getting really fuckingcomfortable with Docker.
(22:46):
A lot of it it like it makes itso incredibly easy to just
create this container full ofeverything that you need and
just get that running on theVPS.
But that's just something thatyou should do for practice.
(23:06):
You should get comfortable SSHSSHing into that container.
Communicating with a Linuxserver.
Everything with MernStackTutorials just encourages you to
run it locally and installglobal packages and not really
(23:27):
pay attention to the securityconcerns of npm, and they you
don't really know how a packagemanager even works.
So, but as long as we installNode and a package manager, we
can run any application, so youdon't really give a fuck about
security at all.
Because it's your personalapplication.
You learned a Mernstacktutorial, and it's good enough,
(23:52):
right?
But a lot of companies, likeyou should get comfortable
communicating through SSH with aLinux server, but a lot of
companies are using cloudhosting now.
How often are you seeingtutorials around spitting up an
EC2 instance with AWS?
One of the most commonexpectations for aspiring
(24:13):
backend developers.
What about Google Cloud?
It's very different.
I don't know about you.
I don't like Google APIs.
I'm not a fan.
I'm not a fan of just settingall that up.
Google is a pain in the ass.
Um I haven't used AWS.
AWS is also like there's alearning curve for sure, but
(24:37):
setting up cloud hosting is noteasy, and that's an expectation
for back-end developers.
And so there are differenthosting solutions, but do you
even know the difference betweendifferent servers that you're
going to need?
Do you want to host a databaseon the same server?
(24:58):
Do you want it on a separateserver?
Why would you want it on aseparate server?
Because you can optimize it.
But you're not buildingapplications when you were just
trying to go quickly throughlearning to code, trying to
follow the Mernstack tutorial.
You're not building impressiveapplications, you're not
building complex applications,your applications aren't
managing a serious amount ofdata, so you don't give a shit
(25:20):
about any of this efficiency,you don't give a shit about the
security.
Why should you?
I wouldn't.
If I'm trying to become adeveloper as fast as possible,
and everything is just promotinga Murnstack tutorial, how am I
supposed to know about thesethings?
There's a lot more we can gointo.
(25:46):
This video is already gettinglong enough.
But here's my big concern aboutMernstack tutorials.
It's not like the lack ofinformation that you're going to
need is it's concerning.
It's really concerning.
A lot of MernStack tutorialsfocus you or focus or manipulate
(26:10):
you into thinking you'rebecoming full stack developers
when no company is going to wantto hire you.
You might get a job, especiallyif you know people, but like
the average developer is notgoing to get a job and go into
the MernStack tutorial phase.
They're just not.
And it's the people that breakout of that and start learning
different programming languages,ways of doing things, maybe you
(26:32):
know, exploring a little bit ofsystem design just to get that
familiarity and then maybetrying to implement some of that
in your application.
Yes, it might be overkill.
That's okay.
Your personal projects, it'sokay for overkill.
It's okay for if you arespending eight months on a
project for you to focus on, youknow, heavy architecture and a
heavy framework, um, and thenmaybe building customizations
(26:54):
for that framework.
And before you even do that,probably building like a simple
version.
If you're doing an MVCframework, build a simple
version of that MVC framework toreally understand what's
happening under hood.
But this, these kind of thingstake so much time that you need
(27:14):
to go from build just buildingCRUD applications from building
applications, which can kind oftake about a year if you're
going the full stack route, toexpanding it to years of
understanding the entire cycleof a web request.
The entire cycle and what'shappening throughout that entire
(27:42):
thing.
Get a little bit familiar withDNS stuff.
Get a little bit familiar withbasic networking stuff.
What are protocols?
There's just like so manylittle things about a web
request as it goes all the waythrough, and your server does a
bunch of stuff, and then it doeswhatever it needs to, and it
(28:03):
communicates with what it needsto, and it sends that response
back.
And the way that the client andserver communicate under these
abstractions is more complicatedthan you think.
You need to be that developerthat just says, fuck you, to
these MERN stack tutorials andgetting comfortable with these
(28:25):
abstractions, and you need todive really deep.
But the problem is a lot ofthese tutorials are teaching the
wrong mindset, and it'sattracting people who have the
mindset of just trying to becomea developer as fast as
(28:48):
possible.
So teach me these abstractionsso I can build an application
and show a company.
I can build an application, butthen when I am tested in the
interview and my fundamentalsare tested, even just with basic
DSA questions, I fumble becauseI don't know what the fuck I'm
doing at all.
And I am years away frombecoming a developer, and that
(29:08):
is most of you.
You are years away frombecoming a developer, and you
have no fucking idea.
And it's sad because I know alot of people there are a lot of
people that do want to do theright thing and they've just
been misled.
And I think the problem is aJavaScript ecosystem.
(29:30):
It allures you like it's juniorfriendly, and it is one of the
biggest culprits for fuckingover junior developers that I
have seen.
And it's one of the biggestreasons why most junior
developers never break into theindustry.
The Mernstack tutorial has failed you.
If you are a junior developertrying to become a professional
developer, you've most likelybeen introduced to MERnstack
tutorials.
It's just this templatedapproach that is pushed
everywhere where it has been formany years.
And this is what you need todive into to become a developer
(00:23):
as fast as possible.
And a very common question Iget is, Don, how do I become a
developer as fast as possible?
And I respond with, well,that's a problem with your
question.
The word fast should not evenbe involved.
But Don, I have to become adeveloper within three months,
within six months.
I just I have to, or I'mscrewed financially.
(00:46):
It's like, what, what the fuck?
What why are you screwed if youdon't become a developer?
And so I think some people theylook at coding as this savior
of all their poor financialhabits or poor financial or
situations that affected theirfinances negatively.
(01:07):
Usually it's poor financialhabits and just poor habits in
general.
Um coding isn't gonna save you.
And this is like one of thefirst things that I tell people
coding is not going to save yourfinancial situation.
It is going to take way toolong for that to save most of
(01:29):
you.
And a lot of people, they don'tdeal with this well.
And so they get into coding,and they might believe me, they
might not, but they pursue itanyways, and they get into
coding with this idea that Ihave to become a developer as
(01:50):
fast as possible.
What is the most efficientpath, right?
And so here comes the MERNSTACtutorial, which was very popular
in coding boot camps for thelongest time, for years.
And it taught you that you canlearn the front end and back end
(02:11):
with JavaScript.
In itself, that isn't such abad idea.
Despite what some other peoplethink, I think JavaScript on the
back end works just fine formajority of applications,
majority of professionalapplications with large teams
working on them.
(02:32):
But if you look at a lot ofyour typical MERN stack
tutorials, I'm just gonna jumpto it.
They are way too surface level.
And so what I want to sharewith you is why they're so
surface level and what youprobably should be expanding on.
But a lot of like a lot of thetutorials really started to
(02:57):
evolve and take shape and becomea template because of the
coding bootcamp industry.
And so you would learn HTML,you would learn semantic HTML,
now we gotta style it, now wegot to bring some interactivity
into it with some JavaScript,and then we need to make some
API calls.
And what happens when we makethose API calls?
(03:18):
Where do they go?
Just they go into a black box.
We have no idea.
And so we learn kind of whatthat black box is.
We don't quite learn how itworks, but we learn what it is
and what it sends back to us andwhat we can expect, right?
And so we're still kind ofexploring the front end.
Most people go down this path,they start with the front end
and then eventually they moveinto the back end, right?
(03:40):
Okay, so what is this blackbox?
How does it work?
Right?
How does it figure out what itneeds to send me?
And so very basic things spinup a node app, and then we learn
routing with Express, and thenwe can respond to the client,
which is really cool, and thenwe want to save our data and we
want to manipulate that data,right?
(04:00):
And so what tends to happen iswhen you approach coding through
JavaScript, very often it'spurpose-driven.
And this is a bad thing to anextent.
Meaning, actually, let meclarify it.
(04:21):
You want to see a practicalresult of you learning to code.
You need to build anapplication, and so you are
offered project-based learning,which again, in itself, isn't
bad.
But project-based learningoften is a little bit gamified,
(04:43):
and it's meant to keep yourattention because you have the
attention of a goldfish, andcourse creators know that,
right?
So project-based learning keepsyour attention, it keeps you
moving forward, and you aregrowing a little bit.
The problem with this, it's notthe path of kind of learning
(05:05):
the front end and the back endthat's the problem.
The problem is the JavaScriptecosystem.
This is I I was thinking aboutif I wanted to expand on this.
I don't think I'm gonna go intoa lot of detail.
It is important, but a problemwith the JavaScript ecosystem is
everyone has trained each otherto just lean heavily on
abstractions very quickly,right?
(05:26):
If we want to get a project up,we want to get it up in front
of a user, and then we want tobuild a back end for it.
We want to get it working,right?
And so the typical CRUD app iswhat is taught with a lot of
these Mern Stack tutorials, andwe get an app working.
That's kind of cool.
Here's the problem.
We can add abstractions tomaybe go the service serverless
(05:52):
route.
We can um choose an ORM to makethis a little bit more
convenient for us.
We can um use maybe somebuilt-in caching with the
templating system that we'reimplementing.
But a lot of these tutorialsjust teach you how to get a
(06:17):
working app up.
They don't teach you how theseabstractions work.
I think it's completely fine tolearn Full Stack in the
JavaScript ecosystem.
I think it's fine to learn thebackend with JavaScript, but all
too quickly these tutorialsramp you up into abstractions
(06:39):
and get you to be lazy.
They distract you from wantingto go deeper.
Abstractions are the solutionin the JavaScript world.
The JavaScript ecosystem isabout enabling indie hackers and
businesses to be able to justlearn one language and get an
(07:03):
entire application up andrunning.
That is kind of the culturearound it.
The focus is on buildingapplications, building web apps.
The focus is not going lowerlevel.
You aren't touching anythingpast even the abstraction that
(07:26):
JavaScript is.
You don't have to do any manualgarbage collection.
A lot of these libraries comewith caching systems, so you
don't have to learn caching.
A lot of times you might gothrough an SQL course, right?
And you'll kind of learn somebasic SQL commands, but you
don't really learn how heavysome of these commands are with
(07:49):
large sets of data.
And if you do, there you goover it briefly just to learn
it.
Hey, we taught you this.
We introduced this informationto you.
Now let us give you an ORM tomake this easier because
companies use ORMs.
And that's easier.
(08:10):
It's easier to maintain with anORM.
It's easier to build kind of alot of helper functions and get
these convenient life cyclehooks in there that you don't
have to build out.
It's just this is whatprofessional companies do.
This is what you see inprofessional applications, and
this is all true, and this isalso very misleading.
(08:34):
Because good developers, reallygood developers, don't need
these abstractions.
Good developers have probablyexplored other programming
languages.
Good developers have thought tothemselves that I don't think I
(08:58):
feel comfortable or trust theseabstractions and how they're
working.
Like, why do I need theseabstractions?
Why are they being pushed infront of me?
I'm curious how they work underthe hood.
Good developers will actuallydig into the code.
Good developers will build abasic MVC framework themselves.
(09:21):
Good developers will build abasic caching system themselves.
I'm not saying you're going tobe building like a production
ready caching system.
But as a junior developer, ifyou don't know how to build a
really basic one, you've beenmisled.
You should be able to.
When you build up a solidfoundation and you get a little
(09:48):
bit of guidance to like w evenjust utilizing a caching system,
how it works, and thencustomizing it a little bit to
get an idea of how it works, youshould be able to build a basic
one.
You should have it's just a lotof these abstractions are just
fundamentals built onfundamentals built on
fundamentals, and they're justbuilding blocks.
And there's just somedisconnect with MERN stack
(10:14):
tutorials that don't encouragedevelopers to dive lower level,
to be curious about how theseabstractions work.
And so then you get this pushof well, a lot of companies are
(10:38):
hiring full stack positionsright now, and we're not really
seeing as many like front-endfocus positions or back-end
focus positions, which there area lot.
I think a lot of people justhave trouble finding them.
Um that that again, differentvideos, I'm not going to expand
on that.
But next JS has beensignificantly pushed out to so
(11:04):
many junior developers that ifyou just learn the front end and
then you learn React and thenyou learn next, now you are
going to be marketable as a fullstack developer.
JavaScript, I I want to touchon next in a sec, but JavaScript
(11:28):
just keeps evolving into thispattern of abstractions and then
eventually serverless andtrying to disconnect.
It's like JavaScript is kind ofjust being formed for a lot of
indie hackers who don't reallycare to be good developers.
You can, JavaScript can supportreally good software engineers,
but a lot of the tutorials,especially aimed at junior
(11:49):
developers, lead them down thewrong path with the wrong
mindset to just be comfortablewith these abstractions.
Just let them in.
And so you get a lot of peoplethat now have found this new
templated approach.
Companies are hiring a lot offull stack developers.
Let's learn next.
That's full stack, right?
(12:10):
You don't know a fucking thingabout the back end if you are
telling anyone that you are afull stack developer because you
can build an application withnext.
You don't know what the fuckyou're talking about.
And that is concerning.
Because I know a lot of juniordevelopers have this belief and
they are following this path ofthe full stack JavaScript path,
(12:34):
and it is failing them.
We shouldn't be adopting, likeif you're aiming for full stack,
and especially back end, weshouldn't be adopting serverless
solutions.
We should be rolling our ownauth.
And maybe this is where I'mjust gonna start diving into
things that most MERN stacktutorials, JavaScript tutorials,
(12:57):
don't dive deep into.
And you know what?
I'm not even gonna start on theback end, I'm gonna start on
the front end.
By the way, if you are divingdeep into Node and you've
already built a few things withExpress, it might be time to
challenge yourself with a morescalable framework, NSJS.
It's one of the most popularframeworks for Node, and I
personally use it to build myprojects.
It's one of the reasons why Idecided to build a course for
(13:19):
it, to get people up to speedwith the basics.
You can find that course atScrimba.com.
Oh, it's also free.
If you use my link in thedescription to sign up for
Scrimba, and you decide toupgrade to the pro plan, which
unlocks a ton of differentcourses, you actually get a
discount.
Again, I partner with thembecause they are actually really
good at building up juniordevelopers.
(13:40):
Check it out.
What do you have to lose?
Now let's get back to thevideo.
A lot of times you'll justlearn HTML, CSS, JavaScript,
React, and then eventually Next.
Most companies don't use Next,by the way.
Actually, I do want toemphasize that.
Again, no notes, a littlescattered, so I'll go back and
forth.
(14:01):
But most companies aren't usingNext.js.
Most companies that are hiringfull stack software engineers,
they're hiring softwareengineers with experience.
They're hiring real full stacksoftware engineers, not fucking
posers, not people who aren'twho don't care about being good
developers, who are outsourcinga lot of their back-end to
(14:24):
serverless solutions, to reallyjust easy abstractions, or even
just like outsourcing, likesetting up some SDK with
superbase and storing data thatway, and they kind of provide a
really convenient authenticationsolution.
You don't really have to learnauthentication.
It's companies aren't lookingfor developers that are going
(14:48):
down that path.
They're looking for actual gooddevelopers that have spread
that have solved problems bothon the front end and back end
over time with their experience.
Just because you see more ofthose positions does not mean
you're going to become moremarketable by trying to become a
full-stack developer.
But you're not really learning.
(15:09):
So React, you know, it's it'sjust a library.
It's not a full framework.
Um, you have to come up withyour own architecture.
A lot of people will justorganize the files by types and
call it a day because they'rebuilding really simple
applications that don't requireyou to have to organize your app
(15:30):
so it's not this chaotic messin six months.
And then no one wants to touchRedux.
Sometimes companies do prefer alittle bit more of uh they want
more debugging options and theywant kind of a stricter data
flow, and they might evenimplement something custom
(15:53):
similar to Redux, right?
Um, a lot of your JavaScripttutorials aren't going over
Angular and how Angular doesthings and how it separates
things.
No, they just introduce you tothe Wild West that is React,
where even if you go intodifferent companies, you're just
gonna get tons oforganizational patterns and it
(16:15):
just gets messy with Reactpretty quickly, unless you bring
in 15,000 libraries that arejust based off of the preference
of the developers on the team.
And then a lot of testing,writing automated tests, they're
(16:36):
not really pushed in tutorials.
They're like, hey, you probablyshould do this.
Here's how you do it.
Let's write a test, and thenwe're gonna move on.
Because that's not the mainthing.
Well, it's not the main thing,but a lot of companies want you
to be able to write automatedtests, and they want you to know
what to test.
How the hell do you know whatto test if you're not writing
(16:57):
tests?
How do you know what to test ifyou don't start ramping up a
lot of the automated tests basedoff of you creating a shitload
of bugs that goes out to users,you have unhappy users, and you
want to reduce that.
That's what automated tests arefor.
I don't really believe in, Imean, I guess automated tests
(17:19):
can help you solidify therequirements of the app and what
your functions do.
They can also be a bit ofdocumentation, but I think good
function names can do that.
I think good tickets can dothat, good GitHub issues can do
that.
Like, really, they do tend toprevent bugs down the road,
especially for core parts ofyour application.
(17:40):
But what does that even mean?
If I'm gonna write automatedtests for core parts of my
application, what's core?
You don't fucking know becauseyou've just seen in the typical
MernStack tutorial that youshould write tests.
Write a few tests.
What the fuck does that evenmean on the front end?
It's way different than theback end, by the way.
There are very differenttesting philosophies on the
front end and back end.
(18:01):
Now, how the fuck are you gonnaknow that because Mernstack
tutorials don't cover this shit?
They really don't.
Or they don't enforce it, orjunior developers are not given
the right mindset to take thisstuff seriously.
And so a lot of Mernstacktutorials will briefly touch on
(18:22):
maybe maybe you should use aCDM, whatever that is, right?
A cache of stings.
That's cool.
Maybe it's like a lot of thesethings that are actually pretty
important.
It's like, well, here it is,here's what it is, and you
should use it, but here's likethe main thing you really should
focus on.
And so, what do what are yougonna do as a new developer
coming in and you're like, man,this is taking a long time and
(18:42):
forgetting some things, I gottafocus on certain things.
I just you start neglecting allthis stuff that matters that
when you're hired, they want youto at least be familiar with
like how to use a CD and how tostore stuff in it, and like how
it works and why you want to useit.
They want you to be comfortablewith automated testing, and you
(19:03):
should kind of understandrequests and headers, things
that you might see if you openup the network tab.
But do you really know it?
Do you really know a lot of theheaders that are used in a lot
(19:25):
of your um request cycles andhow they change and when they
change, why they change, and howeach of those specific headers
affect things?
You really know?
No.
Because MERN stack tutorials byand large do not go over this
stuff.
So you have aspiring front enddevelopers that have no fucking
(19:51):
idea like what the client iseven doing.
They just make an API request.
I get it, JSON data back, andI've built an app.
So is 500 other people that areapplying for the same position
you are.
That's just the front end, andthere are actually quite a bit
(20:12):
more.
I I'm realizing this video isgonna be a long one.
It's quite a few more thingsthat I think people are lacking
on the front end, but you know,it let's just assume you don't
get trapped in the next worldand you actually start diving
into the back end, and maybe Iwant to become a back-end
software engineer.
Like, how many Mernstacktutorials are getting you or
(20:33):
courses are getting you to likereally practice Docker
containerization?
And then, like, let's even saywe're in the node world, right?
Um, what are we gonna use umalongside Docker?
Maybe Docker Compose, a lot ofapps, but you you know I'm
right.
If you've you see this intutorials, they're pushing
things like they used to pushHeroku.
(20:54):
Um, they would push uh now.
I think it's like render andrailway are like the two easy
solutions.
Or if you're using a nextapplication, you're gonna use a
Vercell solution, just easyhosting solutions.
Uh if you're trying to become abackend developer, I I just
you're just hopeless if you'retrying to like build
(21:16):
applications with Next.js.
I hope no one is doing that.
I know a few people are pleasestop that.
So we're gonna assume thatyou're not trapped in this next
world, right?
So now a lot of back-enddevelopers kind of have a node
app, but they're encouraged topush it towards um into a uh
easy hosting solution, like oneof the ones that I just
(21:37):
mentioned.
But you never get practice withsetting it up with a VPS.
A lot of MernStack tutorialsaren't going heavy into Linux
stuff and permission stuff.
Like you hosting something on aespecially like an unmanaged
VPS is just a security nightmarefor your application.
And then where do you host adatabase?
(21:59):
How do you host it on thatserver?
Do you want to abstract it outto a different server?
What the fuck do you do to havethese multiple services that
you need running for yourbackend?
Because you really haven'tpracticed containerization yet.
You haven't really practicedcreating kind of a template with
Docker to be able to spin someof this stuff up easily.
And then what happens if um youdo like maybe you run a managed
(22:24):
solution, now you have to go toan unmanaged VPS and uh because
you're running low on money,because I'm assuming we're
moving away from easy hostingsolutions that are usually free.
Now we we gotta pay for someshit.
You probably don't want to paya lot, so it's gonna be
unmanaged.
So, like a lot of aspiringbackend developers should be
getting really fuckingcomfortable with Docker.
(22:46):
A lot of it it like it makes itso incredibly easy to just
create this container full ofeverything that you need and
just get that running on theVPS.
But that's just something thatyou should do for practice.
(23:06):
You should get comfortable SSHSSHing into that container.
Communicating with a Linuxserver.
Everything with MernStackTutorials just encourages you to
run it locally and installglobal packages and not really
(23:27):
pay attention to the securityconcerns of npm, and they you
don't really know how a packagemanager even works.
So, but as long as we installNode and a package manager, we
can run any application, so youdon't really give a fuck about
security at all.
Because it's your personalapplication.
You learned a Mernstacktutorial, and it's good enough,
(23:52):
right?
But a lot of companies, likeyou should get comfortable
communicating through SSH with aLinux server, but a lot of
companies are using cloudhosting now.
How often are you seeingtutorials around spitting up an
EC2 instance with AWS?
One of the most commonexpectations for aspiring
(24:13):
backend developers.
What about Google Cloud?
It's very different.
I don't know about you.
I don't like Google APIs.
I'm not a fan.
I'm not a fan of just settingall that up.
Google is a pain in the ass.
Um I haven't used AWS.
AWS is also like there's alearning curve for sure, but
(24:37):
setting up cloud hosting is noteasy, and that's an expectation
for back-end developers.
And so there are differenthosting solutions, but do you
even know the difference betweendifferent servers that you're
going to need?
Do you want to host a databaseon the same server?
(24:58):
Do you want it on a separateserver?
Why would you want it on aseparate server?
Because you can optimize it.
But you're not buildingapplications when you were just
trying to go quickly throughlearning to code, trying to
follow the Mernstack tutorial.
You're not building impressiveapplications, you're not
building complex applications,your applications aren't
managing a serious amount ofdata, so you don't give a shit
(25:20):
about any of this efficiency,you don't give a shit about the
security.
Why should you?
I wouldn't.
If I'm trying to become adeveloper as fast as possible,
and everything is just promotinga Murnstack tutorial, how am I
supposed to know about thesethings?
There's a lot more we can gointo.
(25:46):
This video is already gettinglong enough.
But here's my big concern aboutMernstack tutorials.
It's not like the lack ofinformation that you're going to
need is it's concerning.
It's really concerning.
A lot of MernStack tutorialsfocus you or focus or manipulate
(26:10):
you into thinking you'rebecoming full stack developers
when no company is going to wantto hire you.
You might get a job, especiallyif you know people, but like
the average developer is notgoing to get a job and go into
the MernStack tutorial phase.
They're just not.
And it's the people that breakout of that and start learning
different programming languages,ways of doing things, maybe you
(26:32):
know, exploring a little bit ofsystem design just to get that
familiarity and then maybetrying to implement some of that
in your application.
Yes, it might be overkill.
That's okay.
Your personal projects, it'sokay for overkill.
It's okay for if you arespending eight months on a
project for you to focus on, youknow, heavy architecture and a
heavy framework, um, and thenmaybe building customizations
(26:54):
for that framework.
And before you even do that,probably building like a simple
version.
If you're doing an MVCframework, build a simple
version of that MVC framework toreally understand what's
happening under hood.
But this, these kind of thingstake so much time that you need
(27:14):
to go from build just buildingCRUD applications from building
applications, which can kind oftake about a year if you're
going the full stack route, toexpanding it to years of
understanding the entire cycleof a web request.
The entire cycle and what'shappening throughout that entire
(27:42):
thing.
Get a little bit familiar withDNS stuff.
Get a little bit familiar withbasic networking stuff.
What are protocols?
There's just like so manylittle things about a web
request as it goes all the waythrough, and your server does a
bunch of stuff, and then it doeswhatever it needs to, and it
(28:03):
communicates with what it needsto, and it sends that response
back.
And the way that the client andserver communicate under these
abstractions is more complicatedthan you think.
You need to be that developerthat just says, fuck you, to
these MERN stack tutorials andgetting comfortable with these
(28:25):
abstractions, and you need todive really deep.
But the problem is a lot ofthese tutorials are teaching the
wrong mindset, and it'sattracting people who have the
mindset of just trying to becomea developer as fast as
(28:48):
possible.
So teach me these abstractionsso I can build an application
and show a company.
I can build an application, butthen when I am tested in the
interview and my fundamentalsare tested, even just with basic
DSA questions, I fumble becauseI don't know what the fuck I'm
doing at all.
And I am years away frombecoming a developer, and that
(29:08):
is most of you.
You are years away frombecoming a developer, and you
have no fucking idea.
And it's sad because I know alot of people there are a lot of
people that do want to do theright thing and they've just
been misled.
And I think the problem is aJavaScript ecosystem.
(29:30):
It allures you like it's juniorfriendly, and it is one of the
biggest culprits for fuckingover junior developers that I
have seen.
And it's one of the biggestreasons why most junior
developers never break into theindustry.
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