Introducing MEVN

Mongo, Express, Vue.js, and Node.js (MEVN) is a collection of JavaScript technologies just like MongoDB, Express, Angular, and Node.js (MEAN), and like MongoDB, Express, React, and Node.js (MERN). It is a full-stack solution for building web-based applications that use MongoDB as data storage, Express.js as the backend framework (which is built on top of Node.js), Vue.js as the JavaScript framework for the frontend, and Node.js as the main engine for the backend.

This book is for web developers who are interested in learning to build a full-stack JavaScript application using MongoDB, Express.js, Vue.js, and Node.js. It is suitable for beginners and intermediate developers with a basic knowledge of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

The term MEVN may be new, but the technologies used in it are not new. The only new technology that is being introduced here is Vue.js. Vue.js is an open source JavaScript framework, and its popularity is growing rapidly. There's not much of a learning curve with Vue.js and it is also a fierce competitor of other JavaScript frameworks such as AngularJS and ReactJS.

Modern web applications need to be fast and easily scalable. In the past, JavaScript was used in web applications only when there was a need to add some visual effects or animations that normal HTML and CSS could not achieve. But today, JavaScript has changed. Today, JavaScript is used in almost every web-based application, from small to large-scale apps. JavaScript is chosen when the application needs to be much faster and more interactive.

Building a full-stack application using JavaScript as the sole programming language has its own benefits:

• If you are just starting out and learning how to program, you only have to master one language: JavaScript. 
• Full-stack engineers are high in demand. Becoming a full-stack developer means that you have an idea of how databases work, you know how to build both the backend and the frontend, and you also have the skills for UI/UX.

In this book, we will build the application using these technology stacks. 

We will cover the following topics in this chapter:

• An introduction to the MEVN technology stack
• An introduction to Node.js and its installation on Windows, Linux, and macOS
• An overview of npm and its installation
• An introduction to MongoDB and its installation and a few basic commands used in MongoDB
• An introduction to GitHub version control and how it helps software engineers in terms of easy access to code history and collaboration