Episode one - a new thing

3/5/20 Background and Plan

So, I wanted to make me a React. Because I don't really know how to. So I dived straight in.

I wanted to make a website to keep all of our favourite recipes in one place. Toasterfaves. Save using that minging old recipe book we have.

Then I thought about it...

What I actually wanted to make was an end to end app. FULL STACK BRO BRO. YEAH. BRO. Or something.

So I started back right from the very beginning.

Maybe it will help someone. Maybe not. But it might help me...

First step - start React Udemy course.

Second step - ignore that and start again.

Third step - start writing the api for the app.

Fourth step - ignore that and start at the VERY BEGINNING.

REAL first step - hosting.

I already have a website. I've had it for a very long time. As you can probably see from that website, I changed careers a few years back. I quit my office job and went to a coding bootcamp. The course was based around PHP/LAMP stack, but covered a bit of node towards the end. When I finished the course, I started writing a cms for a website for a private client. I used php - it was the most knowledge I had. I got some cheap Linux cpanel hosting and away I went. Everything on there is PHP. I've wanted to change over to node (I have been a sefver side dev for a few years now, and that is all written in node), but didn't get round to it - I didn't have ssh permissions for the server blah blah blah so made excuses to put it to the back of the pile. I thought now was maybe the time to get it to the top of the pile!

This will be a series.

I don't promise to release a new one on a schedule - I have too many kids to make promises like that. When I get round to doing a new bit of the project, I will write some more up.

These are the things I plan to cover in this series:

Get the server set up:

• Install node using nvm, to be able to manage the version easily
• Use a database - I plan to use mongo, just because it is what I know and super easy to use
  • I haven't decided whether to install it on the server and hold the dbs there - I could run a cron job on the cpanel to back up the data/dbs directory that mongo uses, but at the same time, I could just use atlas - mongo has a free tier and I don't plan to go over that - I was going to make a simple site to hold cooking recipes.
  • Atlas is probably a nicer idea - just in case 1 BILLION people want to copy my banging thai sweet potato and chicken soup
  • Connecting to atlas might be more interesting and a more useful use case for others
  • I might struggle to get set up on the server as I have no access to sudo or even su. There is no apk or yum. It's going to be a fun ride...
• Figure out how to expose the backend api through this server
  • Create an api for the app
  • As I said, I plan to use the app for recipes, but it could go on to be used for a blog, for example, or other things
  • Basic crud routes, with authentication
  • Storing images - who wants to read about food without seeing a picture of some???
    • I have toyed with the idea of storing images in a db as base64 for a while. At work, we store in an s3 bucket - this is another option - AWS has free tiers and access or size shouldn't be a problem.
• Create a front end for the app
  • Initially, I want to create a front end to display the stuff - I plan to use react, because I am interested, but may try Vue or A.N.Other by the time I get to this stage...
  • I haven't planned to set up a front end for the creation of items/recipes/whatevers.
  • This will probably come later on
  • Can use postman in the interim once the api is up and running
  • There is an admin section of my website, so I can put it behind there, but it isn't a big deal for me right now

Originially published at triplejdeveloping